Hayes, Polosukhin: HYPE, NEAR, ZEC are key assets as market shifts to fundamentals

BitMEX co-founder Arthur Hayes and NEAR Protocol co-founder Illia Polosukhin have identified HYPE, NEAR, and ZEC as key assets poised to benefit from the cryptocurrency market's shift toward fundamentals. Speaking on the YouTube channel "The Rollup," Polosukhin argued that block space has become a commodity where supply greatly exceeds demand. He explained that NEAR is focusing on chain abstraction and its cross-chain transaction system, NEAR Intents, to connect all chains, assets, and users, thereby making block space fungible. Polosukhin stated that the old logic of buying with the expectation of offloading to retail investors is disappearing. He added that investment criteria have now shifted to whether an asset generates real revenue or if staking can unlock new features. He highlighted the potential of HYPE for its fee discounts and market access, ZEC for its privacy features, and NEAR for its cross-chain and computational capabilities. In the same discussion, Hayes asserted that cryptographic financial privacy will become essential in an era where AI, Big Tech, and governments can track everything. He also revealed that ZEC is his second-largest holding.