Alex Skidanov alex.near is a software engineer and entrepreneur who co-founded NEAR Protocol, a sharded layer 1 blockchain built with an emphasis on usability. Alex Skidanov alex.near's Twitter Score is 195 out of 1000 (an Excellent rating) as of September 2026, ranking #2,418 (top 0.5%) among 487,623 tracked accounts.
Alex Skidanov alex.near co-founded NEAR Protocol alongside Illia Polosukhin, with the project originating as Near.ai, an artificial-intelligence startup focused on program synthesis, before pivoting to a layer 1 blockchain protocol. NEAR Protocol was co-founded in 2018 and launched its mainnet in 2020. Alex Skidanov alex.near was also previously affiliated with Pagoda, the developer company that emerged from a rebrand of Near Inc. in February 2022 and later began winding down in August 2024.
Alex Skidanov alex.near also co-founded Near.ai, continuing work at the intersection of AI and decentralized infrastructure. In 2025, Alex Skidanov alex.near co-authored the arXiv paper "Proof of Response" with Illia Polosukhin, describing a mechanism relevant to decentralized storage and decentralized AI agents. NEAR Protocol has raised significant funding over the years, including a $12.1 million round led by Metastable Capital and Accomplice, a $21.6 million round led by Andreessen Horowitz, a $150 million private token sale led by Three Arrows Capital, and a $350 million investment led by Tiger Global. NEAR also announced an $800 million ecosystem fund focused on supporting new applications, with a particular emphasis on DeFi. The protocol uses a sharding design known as Nightshade, with Nightshade 2.0 going live in August 2024 and introducing stateless validation.
Alex Skidanov alex.near has accumulated 22,020 followers as of September 2026 on the platform and has published 1,881 posts. Alex Skidanov alex.near has been mentioned by 177 accounts, with 447 total mentions.
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