NEAR Foundation appoints Helius CEO to council

• NEAR Foundation has appointed Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz to its council.
• Mumtaz will contribute to product strategy, ecosystem growth and governance.
• He will judge the NEAR Hackathon scheduled for 1–14 November 2026.

NEAR Foundation has appointed Helius chief executive Mert Mumtaz to its council, adding Solana infrastructure experience to its governing body.

Mumtaz leads Helius, which provides developer infrastructure for applications built on Solana (SOL).

“There is no world in which crypto succeeds but distinct markets are gatekept exclusively through CEXes,” Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz said in a statement.

Mumtaz will help guide NEAR Foundation’s product strategy, ecosystem growth and governance as it develops its private on-chain markets strategy.

He will also judge the NEAR Hackathon, a two-week development event running from 1–14 November 2026.

The hackathon will feature projects built using NEAR’s technology stack, including NEAR Intents and NEAR AI Cloud.

NEAR Foundation said its NEAR Intents protocol had processed more than $33 billion in cumulative volume, with confidential total value locked exceeding $160 million.

The appointment adds Helius’s chief executive to the NEAR Foundation Council as the organisation pursues its privacy-focused on-chain markets strategy.