OceanPal Inc., listed on Nasdaq, has successfully raised $120 million through a private investment in public equity transaction aimed at launching SovereignAI, a new subsidiary focused on leveraging the NEAR Protocol for AI infrastructure development.

The announcement made on Tuesday revealed that SovereignAI will adopt a crypto treasury strategy, intending to acquire up to 10% of the NEAR token supply, which positions OceanPal as a public vehicle for accessing the NEAR token’s value.

The partnership with the NEAR Foundation reflects a mutual goal of “universal AI sovereignty.”

Established in 2020, NEAR is a layer-1 blockchain that enables AI applications to function efficiently, allowing AI agents to secure and manage assets across various networks. The initiative aligns with a significant leadership shift at OceanPal, with Sal Ternullo, a former executive at State Street, stepping in as co-CEO, while David Schwed, who has a history with BNY Mellon, Galaxy, and Robinhood, assumes the role of chief operating officer.

Moreover, Illia Polosukhin, co-founder and CEO of NEAR Foundation, is set to join the advisory board of SovereignAI, accompanied by Richard Muirhead from Fabric Ventures and Lukasz Kaiser from OpenAI.

The emergence of AI Agents in Cryptocurrency

AI agents—defined as autonomous systems capable of decision-making without human intervention—are increasingly integrating with the crypto ecosystem, utilizing blockchain networks for asset management and transaction verification.

In September, John D’Agostino, leading institutional strategy at Coinbase, stated in an interview that cryptocurrency is essential for the effective operation of AI agents in financial markets.
(Translation: Cryptocurrency is essential for the effective operation of AI agents in financial markets.)

This past month, Cloudflare, a prominent cloud infrastructure provider, announced the creation of a new stablecoin named NET Dollar to facilitate immediate transactions initiated by AI agents.

Recent analyses from Dune Analytics indicated that Coinbase’s AI-oriented payments protocol has experienced a 10,000% increase in transaction activity.

This surge follows comments from Coinbase developers, suggesting that AI agents are poised to become Ethereum’s greatest power users.
(Translation: AI agents are poised to become Ethereum’s greatest power users.)