American OceanPal, traded on Nasdaq, is going beyond maritime logistics: the company is launching a new structure called SovereignAI, which will operate at the intersection of AI and the NEAR blockchain. For this project, OceanPal has already raised $120 million through a private placement of shares (PIPE).
At the core of the initiative is the idea of «digital sovereignty» for artificial intelligence. OceanPal shares this concept with the Near Foundation, which is acting as a strategic partner for the launch. According to the agreement, SovereignAI will start building up a crypto treasury, planning to buy up to 10% of the total NEAR supply in circulation. Thus, OceanPal becomes the first public company with a direct stake in a Near ecosystem asset.
The Near protocol, recall, was launched in 2020 as an L1 blockchain optimized for AI agent interaction. The network allows autonomous digital systems to manage assets, act without intermediaries, and safely cross different blockchains, according to the project’s official website.
The relaunch of OceanPal also comes with personnel updates. The team was joined by former State Street top manager Sal Ternullo. He will head the company together with the current CEO. David Schwed, who previously worked at BNY Mellon, Galaxy and Robinhood, has been appointed to lead operations.
The new project’s advisors are no less ambitious. The strategic board of SovereignAI includes Near Foundation co-founder Ilya Polosukhin, Fabric Ventures partner Richard Muirhead and one of the key developers of OpenAI Lukasz Kaiser.
How AI agents are penetrating the crypto industry
AI agents are autonomous systems that can perceive, make decisions, and act without human involvement. They are increasingly interacting with the crypto sphere. Using blockchains, they manage assets, confirm actions, and act as independent participants in the economy.
In September, the head of institutional business at Coinbase John D’Agostino said on CNBC that cryptocurrency is necessary for the full operation of AI agents in financial markets.
See also: SharpLink to direct $200 million in Ethereum to Linea to increase asset yields
That same month, Cloudflare, known in the cloud infrastructure space, announced the launch of a new stablecoin NET Dollar. It will be used for instant transactions initiated by AI systems.
And according to Dune Analytics, the payment protocol from Coinbase, launched in May specifically for AI agents, showed a 10,000% increase in activity in just one month.
These figures appeared shortly after two Coinbase developers stated:
“AI agents are about to become the main users of Ethereum”.
