Mert Mumtaz joins NEAR Council as the foundation seeks to develop private markets that connect activity across blockchains. The appointment, announced October 15, brings the Helius chief executive into the body overseeing the foundation’s major decisions.
The significance lies in the work ahead. Making cross-chain applications convenient is one challenge; making them reliable while protecting commercially sensitive information is another. An infrastructure operator’s experience can help identify where an ambitious product vision meets practical constraints.
Mert Mumtaz joins NEAR Council: what his role covers
Area | Announced responsibility |
Foundation oversight | Participation in its governing council |
Product direction | Input into development and strategy |
Ecosystem growth | Support for adoption and execution |
Upcoming developer event | Judge at the NEAR Hackathon |
Mumtaz joins council members Illia Polosukhin, Diogo Mónica, Chris Donovan and Bowen Wang. The hackathon’s development period is scheduled for November 1–14, with results expected by November 18.
A governance appointment should ultimately be judged by decisions and outcomes. Useful follow-up evidence would include clearer development priorities, published milestones and products that address identifiable user needs.
Why his Helius background matters
Helius identifies Mumtaz as its CEO and co-founder. Founded in 2022, the company develops infrastructure for Solana applications.
Infrastructure work involves the systems that applications depend on to read blockchain data, submit transactions and remain available under load. Experience with those operational demands is relevant when evaluating new financial applications.
That relevance does not establish that Helius technology will be incorporated into NEAR. Any integration would require its own announcement and technical details.
For another example of the infrastructure questions behind blockchain finance, see Bitnxt’s coverage of Solana’s delivery-versus-payment settlement program.
Mumtaz’s argument: markets need to connect
In the announcement, Mumtaz said:
“For crypto to win, we need connected, unstoppable liquidity at planetary scale. A market of markets.”
That statement frames the commercial objective. Users should be able to access assets and liquidity without managing every underlying network interaction themselves.
The implementation still matters. A convenient interface can conceal complexity from a user, but it cannot eliminate settlement dependencies, software risk or the need to understand who controls funds at each stage.
Privacy is a product requirement—and a technical question
Public transaction records make blockchain activity independently inspectable. They can also expose balances, trading patterns and relationships that individuals or businesses would prefer to keep confidential.
A privacy-focused product therefore needs to explain more than its intended benefits. Users need to know what information is hidden, who can access it, and what remains visible across the complete transaction.
The same distinction applies to control. An application can offer confidentiality while still depending on external services. Privacy, self-custody and decentralization require separate assessments.
Bitnxt’s discussion of Vitalik Buterin’s cryptographic vision for Ethereum provides related context on the architectural questions surrounding verification and privacy.
Connected markets could serve software as well as people
Applications that transact automatically need clear permissions, spending limits and dependable execution. Reducing the number of manual steps can make them easier to operate, but it also increases the importance of safeguards.
Bitnxt’s guide to how AI agent wallets work examines those controls. The relevant question is whether automation delivers a useful service while keeping authority and accountability understandable.
Bitnxt’s view: watch execution after the appointment
Our assessment is that the appointment is most meaningful as an addition to NEAR’s decision-making capacity.
The next evidence should come from what the foundation builds and how clearly it communicates progress. Product reliability, understandable privacy guarantees and sustained developer participation would carry more weight than an executive’s profile alone.
For readers following the sector, those are practical measures to track as the foundation develops its connected-market strategy.
You might also like: Why AI Agents Could Become Major Crypto Users—and What Still Limits Adoption.
