OceanPal raises $120 million… establishes NEAR-based AI and crypto asset manager 'SovereignAI'

Nasdaq-listed OceanPal Inc. said it has raised $120 million to establish 'SovereignAI', an AI infrastructure and crypto asset (cryptocurrency) manager based on the NEAR Protocol. The funds were secured through a private investment in public equity (PIPE).

According to Cointelegraph on the 29th (local time), SovereignAI is pursuing a crypto asset treasury strategy, in cooperation with the NEAR Foundation, to secure up to 10% of NEAR token supply. Through this, OceanPal is expected to become the first listed company to be directly exposed to NEAR Protocol tokens as a public investment vehicle. The company said the project is being advanced around a joint vision called "universal AI sovereignty (universal AI sovereignty)."

NEAR Protocol is a layer-1 blockchain launched in 2020, designed so that AI agents can manage assets, interact, and operate safely across the network. SovereignAI plans to build a privacy-preserving AI infrastructure on this basis by combining it with NVIDIA's high-performance compute technology.

Along with the announcement, OceanPal also reorganized. Former State Street executive Sal Ternullo joined as co-CEO, and David Schwed, formerly of BNY Mellon, Galaxy Digital, and Robinhood, joined as COO.

Illia Polosukhin, co-founder and CEO of the NEAR Foundation, is also joining SovereignAI's advisory board, alongside Richard Muirhead of Fabric Ventures and Lukasz Kaiser of OpenAI.

The combination of AI agents and crypto assets has been spreading rapidly recently. AI agents are systems that can autonomously make decisions, act, and trade without human intervention; through blockchains they can manage assets, validate transactions, and operate as independent economic actors.