Helius CEO Mert Mumtaz joins NEAR Foundation Council

NEAR Foundation's Council has appointed Mert Mumtaz, CEO of Solana infrastructure firm Helius, to its governing body, the organization said in a statement shared with The Block on Thursday.

The Council oversees the foundation and its most significant decisions, with its members including NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin, Anchorage Digital co-founder Diogo Mónica, former NEAR Foundation COO Chris Donovan, and NEAR One founder Bowen Wang.

Mumtaz will help guide product strategy, ecosystem growth, and governance as NEAR expands its private onchain market vision, according to the statement. He will also judge the upcoming NEAR Hackathon running from Nov. 1 to 14. 

"Mert's conviction, technical depth, and direct approach will be a great asset for the NEAR Foundation Council as we work to bring private assets and markets to every chain," Polosukhin said. "His sharp perspective and shared belief in the vision will be a major advantage for NEAR in shaping what we build next."

Mumtaz leads Helius, which builds Solana infrastructure used by teams including Phantom, Jupiter, Coinbase, and Bitwise. Its services include remote procedure call nodes, data streaming, transaction delivery, and validators.

He was an early NEAR Intents user, and NEAR says he called the protocol "the market of markets" before most of the industry caught on. According to the foundation, NEAR Intents has processed more than $33 billion in all-time volume, with confidential TVL now above $160 million.

Earlier this month, NEAR Intents suffered a $3.8 million exploit after a flaw in its deposit and withdrawal infrastructure. The team said it had patched the vulnerability and pledged full compensation, although deposits and withdrawals across 11 blockchain networks faced a prolonged disruption.