NEAR Protocol didn’t just ride the speed wave it built an intelligent infrastructure to bring AI agents on-chain. By reducing block times to around 600ms and increasing shards from six to eight, NEAR boosted its network capacity by a solid 33% in Q1 2025. That level of throughput lets AI agents interact in real time, laying the groundwork for sophisticated on-chain automation.
But here’s the kicker: lots of chains claim they can handle AI apps. Few actually pair that with smart storytelling. NEAR did. It didn’t only launch agent SDKs and verifiable compute it launched a narrative. PublicAI voice campaigns, BOS SDKs, and ecosystem grants all pointed to the same story: AI belongs on NEAR. That narrative turned interest into engagement, and engagement into token utility.
Engineering the Narrative: Positioning NEAR as the Home for AI Agents
NEAR didn’t just build an AI-capable chain. They rebranded themselves as the infrastructure layer for intelligent, autonomous agents.
Messaging U-turn smart contracts to smart agents
Gone are the days of positioning NEAR as “just another scalable L1.” Now it speaks fluently in agent language: “deploy autonomous agents that own assets, execute transactions, cross chains and you don’t need to think about bridges or gas.” Basically, the blockchain runs behind the scenes .
Speaking the audiences’ language
NEAR made sure every party felt addressed: coders get BOS and AI SDKs, founders hear about the AI Agent Fund and incubator support, and data scientists see a chance to train models on-chain, collect royalties, and contribute to public AI infrastructure.
Narrative frameworks that resonate
Three themes kept popping up:
- Open-source AI—everything’s transparent and community-owned.
- User-owned agents—your AI owns its data and actions.
- Chain-abstracted compute—developers just build apps; NEAR handles the rest.
Trust, identity, compute all on-chain
By building identity and transaction backends into the protocol, NEAR eliminated friction: signed model responses via Proof of Response, wallet-less UX via Intents, and autonomous agents via Shade Agents. It’s the “infrastructure you don’t see, but everything runs on” narrative.
Audience Activation: How NEAR Mapped Its Multi-Segment Campaigns
NEAR understood early that you can’t drive network effects with a one-size-fits-all message. To grow its AI ecosystem meaningfully, it mapped distinct personas developers, AI-native builders, and general users and gave each of them purpose-built tools and on-ramps to engage.
Developers: Build AI, Onboard Agents
- BOS and AI SDKs rollout
NEAR launched its Blockchain Operating System (BOS) alongside specialized AI SDKs to reduce the friction for developers. Whether you’re a smart contract veteran or an AI engineer exploring Web3, NEAR made it easier to deploy intelligent agents that run on-chain, interact across protocols, and evolve in behavior. - Long-tail SEO through resources
The NEAR dev team populated GitHub with walkthroughs, agent prompt templates, and starter repos, creating a long-tail SEO footprint. These organic search entries captured high-intent traffic from AI engineers searching terms like “on-chain AI agent deployment” or “BOS AI quickstart” effectively funneling them straight into NEAR’s ecosystem. - Hackathons and developer hubs
NEAR’s visibility at hackathons like the “Coinbase Onchain AI Hackathon” gave developers a real environment to test BOS logic, while Discord channels and Telegram groups enabled 24/7 peer support. It wasn’t just code it was a thriving conversation around how AI and blockchain could work together under one roof.
Founders and Builders: Fast-Track Programs for AI Startups
- HZN AI Incubator & Agent Fund
Through strategic partnerships with HZN Labs and Delphi Labs, NEAR introduced dedicated programs to support AI-native startups. With a $20 million Agent Fund, founders received not just capital, but direct access to NEAR’s tech, advisors, and platform-level promotion to accelerate their launch journey. - Co-building standout products
Projects like NearGPT, AgentX, and PublicAI weren’t just external integrations they were jointly incubated, co-marketed, and highlighted in NEAR’s thought leadership. These case studies became references for others, signaling to new AI founders that NEAR doesn’t just support projects it champions them. - Startup-centric PR playbook
NEAR helped its portfolio projects gain visibility through Medium articles, AI-focused roundtables, and product drops. Each announcement was amplified by social coverage, developer Q&As, and mentions in top Web3 newsletters, offering compounding PR value with every launch.
General Users: Simple Tasks, Real Rewards
- NEAR Tasks as the gateway
For non-technical users, NEAR launched the NEAR Tasks platform a micro-labor economy where users could get rewarded for labeling data, validating prompts, or even completing surveys that improved AI accuracy. Over 48,000 users joined in just a few weeks, attracted by meaningful contributions tied to real earnings. - PublicAI voice campaign
A $500,000 reward pool powered PublicAI’s voice sampling campaign. Users recorded short voice clips to improve multilingual AI agents. This wasn’t passive engagement it was active participation in shaping NEAR’s open-source model training efforts, with clear token payouts. - Making utility accessible
By bridging users with real AI processes like labeling, feedback scoring, and prompt testing NEAR made the ecosystem tangible. You didn’t need to be a developer to participate in the AI boom. You just needed a wallet, a task, and a bit of time.
Creating Paid and Organic Flywheels That Reinforce Each Other
Instead of treating paid and organic channels as separate silos, NEAR crafted a self-feeding ecosystem. Paid efforts sparked interest. Organic campaigns nurtured it. The result? A growth machine that scaled with both velocity and depth.
Paid Campaigns with Purpose and Precision
- Precision targeting for developers
Paid campaigns on Google, Gitcoin, and AI communities were laser-focused. Instead of throwing money at impressions, NEAR invested in relevance targeting builders already experimenting with AI SDKs or on-chain automation. - $500K+ in tactical incentives
PublicAI’s contribution rewards, BOS quest bounties, and targeted airdrops were structured to onboard and retain. Each dollar spent was calculated to generate code contributions, prompt iterations, or user data all of which fed directly back into NEAR’s AI systems. - Influencer outreach with ROI focus
Strategic placements with AI creators on YouTube and X weren’t just brand awareness plays they were conversion tools. Viewers were nudged toward tutorials, challenges, or giveaways, ensuring every campaign had measurable ROI.
Organic Content That Created Real Traction
- Ecosystem storytelling that sticks
NEAR didn’t just publish updates they framed every new release as a chapter in a larger story. From weekly changelogs to AI feature launches, content was consistent, developer-focused, and shareable across Twitter/X, Reddit, and Substack communities. - User-generated engagement
Competitions like “Build Your Agent” or AI meme threads ignited real community involvement. The results? Dozens of BOS templates, thousands of social mentions, and a growing pipeline of open-source contributions—all unpaid, all organic. - Open-source demos that invite replication
Every NEAR agent launch was followed by a demo and template, enabling devs to replicate with minimal effort. That naturally led to organic blog posts, forum discussions, and new experiments.
Where Paid and Organic Intersect
- Campaigns that trigger conversations
Paid Discord raids or quest campaigns often led to unpaid viral moments. A well-placed Galxe challenge turned into an influencer thread. A Gitcoin bounty turned into a Medium explainer. NEAR’s secret? Make the paid look organic and let the community run with it. - Loops that self-optimize
Data from paid engagement flowed back into NEAR’s community strategy. If a YouTube series brought strong BOS SDK signups, NEAR doubled down with similar organic content. It wasn’t guesswork it was iteration backed by insights. - Unified rewards across both funnels
With Galxe, Zealy, and on-chain verification tools, NEAR unified the experience. Whether someone arrived via an X ad or a Discord drop, they entered the same ecosystem earning the same types of rewards and visibility.
Want to grow your AI-powered token like NEAR?
Designing the Right Rewards: How NEAR Built Utility into Its Incentives
NEAR didn’t just hand out tokens it structured rewards to deepen utility and build long-term engagement. Every incentive served a purpose, creating a loop between contribution and access.
Model Training = Token Access
Through PublicAI, contributors helped improve open-source AI models and earned credits for inference usage. These credits unlocked access to datasets, BOS-based tools, and premium model outputs. Token staking added another layer users could stake NEAR to access advanced endpoints, faster processing, or agent customization. Instead of passive airdrops, NEAR tied its token to compute, making effort the entry point to value.
Human-in-the-Loop = Retention Mechanism
NEAR kept people engaged through prompt engineering contests, validation tasks, and quiz-based feedback. Each task helped fine-tune agent responses or improve BOS functionality. With gamified leaderboards, reward tiers, and quests, NEAR transformed contribution into competition. This system encouraged users to return not just for payouts—but to improve their rank, unlock perks, and stay connected to agent development.
Agent Tokenization = Future-Proof Utility
NEAR gave AI agents the ability to earn, spend, and distribute tokens. Smart contracts handled usage-based revenue sharing, while performance logic tied rewards to reliability and efficiency. Developers could tokenize their agents and let them operate as autonomous, incentivized participants in the ecosystem. This approach ensured long-term utility, with each interaction contributing to a self-sustaining economic model.
Leveraging Events and Ecosystem Moments to Sustain Momentum
NEAR understood that events aren’t just for visibility—they’re launchpads for adoption. Every appearance, whether at a major conference or a niche side-event, was tied to a product release, developer milestone, or incentive mechanism.
Side-Events That Sparked Builder Engagement
At ETHGlobal and AIxCrypto, NEAR positioned itself where the most curious and capable developers gather. Through workshops, pop-up coding stations, and mentor-led sessions, NEAR gave participants hands-on exposure to BOS and agent-building frameworks. These side-events weren’t passive showcases—they were activation grounds where builders tested SDKs, asked questions, and deployed on the spot.
Launch Moments That Created Inflection Points
NEAR didn’t rely on announcements alone. When BOS 2.0 launched, it wasn’t just a technical update—it was timed alongside PublicAI’s reward campaign, creating a moment where infrastructure met community action. Each product milestone acted as a rally point, prompting spikes in user activity, code contributions, and wallet onboarding.
Real-World Touchpoints with Real Builders
NEAR’s presence at major industry events like Token2049 and Consensus went beyond keynote stages. At every IRL event, the protocol offered tangible tasks stake an agent, deploy a contract, or complete a BOS quest. In exchange, attendees earned rewards, built prototypes, or joined follow-up cohorts. It was experiential marketing backed by actual on-chain activity.
Launching with Purpose, Not Just Presence
What set NEAR apart was intention. Every event, from hackathons to protocol showcases, was tied to something concrete a tool to try, a token to earn, a product to test. These moments weren’t just about awareness. They were engineered to convert curiosity into commitment, and touchpoints into traction.
Data-Driven Proof: What Worked and How It Scaled
It’s one thing to run campaigns it’s another to prove they worked. NEAR’s growth wasn’t anecdotal. It showed up in numbers that validated both its marketing strategy and its infrastructure bets.
NEAR Tasks Delivered Real Participation
The NEAR Tasks platform saw more than 48,000 beta users onboarded in just two months. These weren’t idle sign-ups they actively contributed to prompt validation, data labeling, and model testing. The high participation rate confirmed that NEAR’s blend of incentives and accessibility resonated with a non-developer audience.
AI Development Picked Up Momentum
Since the start of Q1 2025, NEAR recorded a 30% increase in AI-related smart contract deployments. This surge directly correlates with the rollout of BOS AI SDKs, developer quests, and hackathon-driven experimentation. It wasn’t just buzz it was builders deploying real applications on-chain.
Best-in-Class Retention Rates
NEAR currently leads all Layer-1 protocols in user retention, holding a 9.5% rate according to recent Messari analysis. This number speaks volumes about NEAR’s ability to not only attract users but keep them engaged with practical tools, continuous incentives, and a clear value path.
Liquidity Loops Confirm Economic Activity
On-chain activity also mirrored growing adoption. Stablecoin volume rose by 2%, while decentralized exchange (DEX) activity surged 101%. These liquidity loops indicated not just movement, but meaningful economic behavior driven by rewards, transactions, and agent-based interactions powering the NEAR economy.
NEAR’s Blueprint: What Other Web3 Projects Can Learn
NEAR’s AI-driven success wasn’t the result of flashy marketing alone it was the outcome of a carefully constructed foundation. For Web3 teams looking to replicate that momentum, there are valuable lessons to extract from NEAR’s playbook.
Build the Tools Before You Build the Hype
NEAR didn’t start by selling a dream. It started by delivering developer-ready infrastructure BOS, AI SDKs, prompt templates, and on-chain agent frameworks. The ecosystem wasn’t asked to imagine what could be built; it was given everything needed to build immediately. That developer-first approach created credibility long before the narrative gained traction.
Design Incentives That Reward Real Contribution
Instead of defaulting to airdrops or passive token farming, NEAR aligned its incentives with productive actions. Contributors earned by improving prompts, submitting voice samples, deploying agents, or validating outputs. This made rewards meaningful, sustainable, and tied to actual ecosystem value.
Use Tokenomics as a Feedback Engine
NEAR embedded utility into every layer of its token design. From staking for compute access to tokenized agents generating revenue, every loop was built to circulate value. Projects that rely solely on speculative demand risk losing long-term engagement. NEAR’s model shows how to keep users participating through ongoing token-based feedback.
Align Marketing with Product Readiness
Too many protocols overinvest in hype before they ship. NEAR reversed that. It synchronized product launches with media cycles, ensuring every announcement had substance behind it. By funding both technical development and content creation equally, it ensured marketing stayed rooted in product truth—boosting trust and driving adoption.
Conclusion
NEAR Protocol’s AI-powered growth strategy offers a clear lesson for any Web3 project: success doesn’t come from hype alone it comes from combining robust infrastructure, targeted incentives, real user engagement, and smart, synchronized storytelling. By building developer-first tools, rewarding valuable contributions, and aligning product readiness with marketing momentum, NEAR turned its platform into a magnet for builders, contributors, and long-term users alike. This approach not only sparked adoption but sustained it through measurable network effects, liquidity loops, and agent-driven utility. For Web3 teams aiming to replicate such success, execution is everything—and the right partner makes all the difference. Blockchain App Factory provides AI Token Marketing Services to help visionary projects design, launch, and scale campaigns that blend technical depth with commercial impact.
