NEAR will for the first time offer Proof-of-Stake (PoS) delegators the chance to earn rewards in more than one token. Launching with Aurora, the Ethereum scaling solution that allows projects built on Ethereum to utilize the cutting-edge technology of the NEAR Protocol, stake farming contracts will allow validators to distribute more than one token to delegators that help secure the NEAR network.

This gives NEAR validators the unique opportunity to attract more capital while ensuring new and growing projects can take part in network security as well as gain exposure to delegators.  

NEAR is the first proof-of-stake blockchain to support stake farming contracts. This will provide opportunities for the NEAR ecosystem to further decentralize by allowing validators to take a more active role in supporting new and emerging projects.

“The new validator model allows for better alignment of the incentives in the NEAR ecosystem. We’re looking forward to seeing the collaborations between projects and professional validators and delivering much more value to the users,” says Alex Shevchenko, the CEO of Aurora Labs. 

## What is Proof-of-Stake?

Proof-of-stake is a type of consensus mechanism used by blockchain networks to help keep them secure. It requires users to stake the network’s base token to become a validator. Validators play the same role as miners in proof-of-work networks like Bitcoin: they help order transactions and create new blocks. 

Proof-of-stake networks like NEAR, however, come with a number of improvements over proof-of-work. They use a lot less electricity to power the network – NEAR is certified carbon neutral – and doesn’t require expensive, specialized hardware to be a validator. 

As a result, proof-of-stake networks are likely to be more decentralized than their proof-of-work counterparts, as more people can meet the requirements of being a validator. 

## Staking and validating on NEAR

For validators to take part in securing NEAR, they must stake a certain amount of $NEAR tokens as collateral. Once staked, these tokens are then used to ensure the validator acts honestly. If the validator tries to cheat or change the blockchain record, the network burns part of the stake as punishment. 

There is a minimum threshold for how much $NEAR must be staked, which validators can invite delegators (token holders who want to secure the network without running validation hardware) to contribute to. Delegation is the opportunity for all token holders to stake in partnership with a validator, leasing a small portion of their validating node. Delegators can lock their funds into a staking pool and receive rewards.

## Challenges with existing PoS Mechanism

In the current system, just like any other proof-of-stake network, a user delegates the base token—in this case, $NEAR—to the validator and receives the same token back as a reward from staking, which is currently around 10% of annualized return. 

The current PoS mechanism creates a misalignment of interests from the professional validators, who specialize in server management for staking, and ecosystem projects, who build and grow the NEAR ecosystem. Previously, ecosystem projects on PoS networks couldn’t receive any benefits from validator rewards. With this new update, they now can. 

## A New Option for Validators and Delegators 

In NEAR’s new stake farming system, ecosystem projects can partner with validators to incorporate the project tokens’ farming into their rewards structure. This allows validators to split the NEAR staking rewards with the projects. 

At the same time, stake farming also creates a more compelling proposition to delegators who now get both NEAR and project tokens, with a much higher APY in most cases. This newly found synergy will likely accelerate NEAR’s ecosystem growth with further network decentralization.

Aurora is the first project to adopt this new vision for validators on NEAR. Going forward, other projects will also have the opportunity to take part in this radical new vision for securing NEAR and supporting the ecosystem.  In Aurora’s case, its DAO approved the new staking farm. The launch of the new Aurora validator is a fulfillment of the Aurora DAO promise to distribute 3% of AURORA tokens to the NEAR community.

While this is the first farm launched by Aurora, there is flexibility to open more in the future. 

This upgrade to NEAR protocol is one of several planned this year that will help the network further decentralize, become more inclusive, and help accelerate its mission to onboard the world into web3. 

NEAR will for the first time offer PoS delegators the chance to earn rewards in more than one token.

NEAR Launches Stake Farming To Unlock Ecosystem Rewards

NEAR Protocol has successfully raised $150 million in its latest funding round, accelerating its mission to help billions of people learn and use blockchain and decentralized technologies.

The round was led by Three-Arrows Capital with participation from several crypto-native funds including Mechanism Capital, Dragonfly Capital, a16z, Jump, Alameda, Zee Prime, Folius, Amber Group, 6th Man Ventures, Circle Ventures, and MetaWeb.vc — the NEAR ecosystem fund. The round also included several top angels including Alan Howard, Santiago Santos and Aave Founder Stani Kulechov cementing NEAR’s reputation among industry leaders as a fast-growing blockchain that combines simplicity, scalability and security.

“We are excited to support the NEAR team and ecosystem as they scale blockchain applications,” says Kyle from Three-Arrows Capital.

“With multichain interoperability of Rainbow Bridge, Aurora (EVM), Octopus (Substrate), and NEAR native’s Nightshade sharding technology, NEAR is best suited for empowering blockchain applications for mainstream adoption,” says Amos Zhang, founder of MetaWeb.vc.

“We’re delighted to be backed by such a fantastic group of investors. It provides proof of what’s been built, and what’s to come,” says Illia Polosukin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol.

The funding builds on the $65.9 million raised by the project so far, from backers across the globe including DCG, Pantera Capital, Electric Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Blockchain.com, and Baidu Ventures.

## Fueling Decentralization

The funding will be used to accelerate adoption of Web3 technologies through ecosystem funding, developing NEAR’s regional hubs and raising awareness for the brand, the projects building on NEAR and its global community to new audiences.

NEAR has already established communities in Asia, Africa and Europe, and is looking to help support emerging communities in Latin America, Turkey and India.

“We are delighted to have such a fantastic list of backers supporting NEAR’s mission,” says Marieke Flament, NEAR Foundation’s CEO. “We are looking forward to leveraging the funding to improve access to blockchain technology in an ever growing list of countries across the world.”

NEAR Protocol has a proven track record of supporting its fast-growing ecosystem. In 2021, it allocated $800 million (now valued at $1.8 billion) — the largest of any layer 1 blockchain — to help fuel its mission to decentralize the community and help users reimagine finance, creativity, and identity in new and inclusive ways.

As part of that allocation, Proximity Labs, a research and development firm targeting the NEAR ecosystem, created a $350 million grants DAO (now valued at $800 million) aimed at projects, organizations, and individuals building decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on the NEAR blockchain.

Since mainnet launch in Q4 2020, the NEAR network has processed more than 70 million transactions, and supports over 2.3 million accounts. It has 200,000 community members, 1,700 actively monthly builders and more than 100 guilds. It also became the first truly sharded blockchain, in Q4 2021, running with four shards on mainnet, with further upgrades scheduled for 2022.

NEAR Protocol has successfully raised $150 million in its latest funding round.

NEAR Raises $150M To Help Accelerate Mass Adoption of Web3

NEAR is pleased to announce that Terra, a leading blockchain protocol deploying a suite of algorithmic decentralized stablecoins, is integrating its UST stablecoin on the [NEAR](/near-protocol/) and [Aurora](/aurora-dev/) ecosystems. This integration is made possible through a partnership with leading DeFi protocols [NearPad](/nearpad/) and [Rose](/rose/).

NearPad, which aims to be the DeFi hub on Aurora, includes a DEX AMM product where users will be able to trade assets and provide liquidity with UST pairs. Rose is a stableswap and borrowing protocol on Aurora that allows users and other DeFi platforms to tap into deep, capital efficient, stablecoin liquidity.

The partnership between Terra, NearPad, and Rose will facilitate the growth of UST to new ecosystems on both NEAR and Aurora. Users will be able to bridge assets directly from Terra to Aurora via Allbridge or from any of the other supported chains. Both NearPad and Rose will offer incentivized opportunities for users to deposit UST liquidity into the protocols, which then can be accessed by the wider NEAR and Aurora communities.

“Partnering with Terra to bring UST to ecosystem to our community will be a big step towards growing the Near and Aurora ecosystem,” says Aiden Knox, Founder of NearPad and Rose. “I’m excited to be working closely with the Terra team to not only bring UST to NearPad and Rose, but also for the deeper integrations and collaborative projects this partnership enables.”

UST’s expansion to the NEAR ecosystem demonstrates the importance of a move toward a multi-chain,composable future. Users will have access to the benefits of protocols built on NEAR technology without any compromise in terms of having access to some of the most popular assets such as the leading decentralized stablecoin.

“NEAR has been built for simplicity, security and scalability,” says Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR. “Stablecoins like UST provide a simple interface to store value and interact with apps which need to use a stable unit of account. Connecting NEAR and Terra ecosystems via Allbridge allows apps like Rose and NearPad to offer new ways to use stablecoins to both communities.”

“We’re excited about the NEAR ecosystem and are looking forward to continuing UST’s cross-chain expansion via NearPad and Rose,” adds Jeff Kuan, Head of Business Development of Terra. “Working with strong teams like theirs, we’ll see UST embedded more deeply in the global DeFi ecosystem.”

NEAR is pleased to announce that Terra is integrating its UST stablecoin on the NEAR and Aurora ecosystems.

Terra Partners with NEAR and Aurora, Bringing UST Stablecoin to Boost DeFi Growth

We’re excited to announce that developers working in the NEAR ecosystem will now be able to use KYVE as a storage and validation solution for their data streams starting today.

KYVE bridges data from NEAR, taking a snapshot of the complete NEAR chain, including both blocks and transactions, and stores it permanently on Arweave, the decentralized storage network that offers Web3 projects a platform for the indefinite storage of data.

By leveraging Arweave, the network provides a secure, scalable, and immutable solution that can grow over time.

## How does the integration work?

Decentralized uploaders and validators power KYVE’s network. Validators ensure that the uploaded data is correct. If the data is incorrect, the stake of the uploader gets slashed. This mechanism ensures that only valid data is uploaded from the NEAR chain to Arweave.

![NEAR Partners With KYVE To Bring Permanent Storage to Ecosystem](https://awesome-near.s3.amazonaws.com/articles/near-partners-with-kyve-2.jpg)

KYVE’s architecture supports multiple blockchains, making it easier for users to interact with different chains. Additionally, the uploaded data is available and reliable as the network’s uploaders and validators are incentivized to keep the system healthy.

“At NEAR, we’ve always believed the future success of blockchain technology will be built on collaboration. Partnering with KYVE to provide simple, reliable access to Arweave, enabling developers on NEAR to use this class-leading data storage solution is part of that vision,” comments Erik Trautman, NEAR Foundation CEO.

To learn more about running an incentivized validator and help grow the KYVE x NEAR community, join the NEAR pool!

MoonPay has announced customers in 150 countries worldwide will be able to buy $NEAR directly through its platform.

NEAR Partners With KYVE To Bring Permanent Storage to Ecosystem

MoonPay, the Swiss-based crypto payments infrastructure company used by more than 5 million people, has announced customers in 150 countries worldwide will be able to buy $NEAR directly through its platform.

While MoonPay already allows users in Europe and elsewhere to buy $NEAR using a debit or credit card, this is the first time users in 150 countries, including the United States, will be able to use MoonPay’s quick, simple service.

“By providing a direct on-ramp to NEAR, we’re giving more people exposure to this exciting and dynamic ecosystem,” said Ivan Soto-Wright, co-founder and CEO at MoonPay.

“We’ll be watching eagerly as NEAR develops and new projects emerge as the community expands. We can’t wait to see what’s in store for it next.”

MoonPay has made the buy flow significantly faster for users, with the creation of fixed quotes that guarantee the amount of crypto users will receive once they purchase.

The full list of countries $NEAR is available in can be found here. While $NEAR is now available to buy in the US, there are still a number of states where purchasing has not yet been activated. The states where citizens cannot buy $NEAR at launch are Louisiana, Texas, New York, and Hawaii.

Users in the remaining 46 states and 150 other countries will be able to buy $NEAR on MoonPay from today.

## Supercharging Sharding

The announcement coincides with the launch of sharding on NEAR, the next significant chapter in the NEAR blockchain.

NEAR’s Nightshade Sharding accelerates the speed of the network to process more transactions securely as well as increasing its capacity to run bigger and more resource-intensive Dapps, like gaming.

NEAR has more than 20 [gaming](/categories/gaming/) and [NFT projects](/categories/nft/) currently running on the blockchain that can take advantage of super-low fees, and infinite scalability.

DeFi is also set to benefit from MoonPay’s integration and the upgrades to the blockchain. Well-known DeFi projects Curve.Fi, Sushi, Dodo, Kyber, Woo, and NEAR native projects Ref, Burrow, Onomy and Trisolaris have, or are in the process of launching on NEAR’s secure and scalable blockchain, with more to follow.

MoonPay Launches NEAR Fiat On Ramp in 150 Countries Worldwide

deadmau5, the DJ and Producer has teamed up with rockband Portugal. the Man, Mintbase, and NEAR to release a single as an NFT.

The song, titled “this is fine” is being sold exclusively as a collection of 1 million NFTs on the Mintbase NFT marketplace, which runs on the NEAR blockchain, with tokens [now on sale](https://www.mintbase.io/thing/nb0-oBR379DzoFYeYv-LesjVNmrVlDs5IqQ8hfDfnMU:deadmau5.mintbase1.near).

The announcement took place in Miami during the Art Basel art fair, which takes place every year in the American city.

Roughly three quarters of the 1 million NFTs, are being sold at Miami’s Art Basel festival for $1.29 a piece. The remaining NFTs will be sold as part of a collection of additional awards.

In the “Ultimate Bundle,” some 50,000 NFTs will include artwork, a limited edition NFT, merchadise pack and a spot on the guestlist of a forthcming DeadMau5’s concert.

At the time of writing, nearly 500,000 of the [NFTs have already been sold](https://www.mintbase.io/thing/nb0-oBR379DzoFYeYv-LesjVNmrVlDs5IqQ8hfDfnMU:deadmau5.mintbase1.near).

“It’s about adoption. It’s about adopting this way of doing things for artists, and it’s also about public adoption and companies working together to adopt technology that’s going to make this easier for everyone,” said deadmau5.

The announcement forms part of a wider series NEAR has lauched to help people get to grips with Web3 technology across America.

For most people, buying NFTs has been a complex experience, involving additional fees, delays and multiple wallets. With NEAR and Mintbase, users will be able to buy NFTs using fiat cash instantly, with super low fees, thanks to an integration with payment rail provider, Stripe.

NEAR will be visiting a number of key cities over the coming months. Starting in Miami, NEAR and the NEAR bus will be traveling to New York and San Francisco over the coming months.

![Deadmau5 Launches NFT Partnership with Mintbase and NEAR](https://awesome-near.s3.amazonaws.com/articles/near-bus-hero.jpg)

NEAR is on a mission to make blockchain and crypto a simpler experience that anyone can take part in. From buying NFTs, creating a DAO or joining a Guild, at NEAR it’s a simple as clicking a mouse. [Find out how](https://near.org/).

deadmau5, the DJ and Producer has teamed up with rockband Portugal. the Man, Mintbase, and NEAR to release a single as an NFT.

Deadmau5 Launches NFT Partnership with Mintbase and NEAR

Travala.com, the world’s leading cryptocurrency-friendly online travel agency, and NEAR Protocol, the high-performance and high-security blockchain platform, today announced a strategic partnership to integrate NEAR Protocol’s NEAR token on the travel website’s platform. 

The integration will enable NEAR token holders to book over 2.2 million hotels and homes, 600+ airlines, and 40,000+ activities in more than 230 countries. “It’s announcements like this that perfectly symbolise NEAR’s mission to bring billions of users into the Web3 world,” says Erik Trautman, the CEO of NEAR Foundation. 

Through the partnership, holders of NEAR will be able to participate in a cheaper, fairer, and more inclusive travel economy alongside leading cryptocurrency assets like Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Travala.com’s native AVA token. Additionally, NEAR Protocol will be using Travala.com’s corporate account services for the company’s internal travel requirements. 

With savings of up to 40% available on Travala.com (when compared with other online travel agencies), a total of over 3,000,000 travel products will soon be at the fingertips of NEAR token holders worldwide, increasing the exposure of NEAR Protocol’s ecosystem to an ever-expanding user base. 

“We are very excited to see how unlocking travel for NEAR token holders will help other see the benefits of building and using NEAR,” says Trautman. 

Commenting on the partnership, Juan Otero, Travala.com CEO, said “In continuing our commitment towards mass cryptocurrency adoption, we’re very excited to partner with NEAR Protocol to champion the growth of the crypto community and to bring a new use case to NEAR. The team impressed me with their vision for their business, and I have no doubt that we will see them making waves in the crypto community.”


NEAR token holders will soon be able to book over 3,000,000 travel products in 230+ countries, boosting NEAR adoption.

Travala.com Partners with NEAR Protocol to Integrate NEAR

NEAR, the leading blockchain network has announced a strategic partnership with Alchemy Pay, the hybrid crypto-fiat payment gateway solution. Through this partnership, Alchemy Pay will enable easier access to NEAR Protocol by providing fiat on-ramps across 65 countries via Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and other local payment methods, including mobile wallets and bank transfers.

In addition to the payment rails, Alchemy Pay will be integrating the NEAR token onto its crypto-fiat payment solution to support acceptance of the token across Alchemy Pay’s global merchant network. This network includes the e-commerce leader Shopify, the global marketplace Arcadier, and Hong Kong’s leading chain Pricerite.

NEAR also announced it has joined the Blockchain Infrastructure Alliance co-founded by Alchemy Pay. The Alliance connects key entities in all sectors of the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. Members will incubate new projects that seek to solve industry challenges and promote cooperation between networks, dApps, crypto exchanges, DEXs, wallets, stablecoins, fiat payment rails, merchant networks, and more.

The Alliance will benefit from NEAR Protocol’s extensive network and expertise. Its Proof-of-Stake consensus provides users with a decentralised form of finance while maintaining carbon neutrality. NEAR also supports a number of ecologically-focused projects building platforms and applications on its blockchain ecosystem.

Together, Alchemy Pay and NEAR have identified a number of projects that require nurturing in order to fulfil their potential. In response to this need, the partnership is initiating funds for investment to expand the ecosystem’s technology and community. Developer tooling and documentation, validator and staking resources, open-source libraries, public goods projects, research & development, decentralized applications with open source components, educational materials for developers, and interoperability solutions can all benefit from this initiative.

“NEAR is leading the way in ecologically sound blockchain development,” said Alchemy Pay CEO, John Tan. “Their vision for sustainability will influence the work of the Alliance we are building together, making it all the more positive for the industry at large.”

“Ultimately, blockchain solutions must be well integrated with the fiat currency economy,” said NEAR’s CEO, Eric Trautman. “Alchemy Pay is crucial in helping us get there.”

The application scenarios of Alchemy Pay are rich with possibility, and the number of NEAR mainnet accounts exceeded 1.5 million in November this year. The cooperation between NEAR Protocol and Alchemy Pay is a promising development for the blockchain industry.

Alchemy Pay will enable easier access to NEAR Protocol by providing fiat on-ramps across 65 countries via Visa, Mastercard, PayPal and other local payment methods.

NEAR Integrates Alchemy Pay’s Hybrid Gateway, Joins the Blockchain Infrastructure Alliance

In July 2021, Textile launched the Filecoin-NEAR bridge, taking the first step to provide simple, permissionless storage for smart contracts on NEAR — a sharded layer 1 blockchain protocol for building user-friendly decentralized applications. The novel storage bridge creates a seamless way for NEAR applications, smart contracts, or NFTs to integrate Filecoin-based storage of any form of data. In addition, to encourage utilisation of the bridge, storage costs on Filecoin via the bridge have been and will be provided free.

Today we are excited to deepen the collaboration between the Filecoin ecosystem and the NEAR ecosystem with the launch of a $300,000 joint grants program designed to support developers interested in exploring new opportunities at the intersection of these two protocols. Upon receiving a grant, projects will also gain access to the global collectives of both NEAR and Filecoin to support product development and user growth.

## About NEAR: A Developer Friendly, Sharded, Proof-of-Stake Public Blockchain

NEAR is a decentralized application platform built to bridge the users of today’s Internet to the blockchain-based web of the future. NEAR is a PoS layer 1 blockchain platform, built with UX and DevX in mind. NEAR’s novel sharding mechanism, Nightshade, parallelizes computation on chain and automatically increases capacity when needed, resulting in theoretically infinite scalability.

NEAR Protocol is built by a world-class team of engineers and entrepreneurs, who have won two ICPC world championships and medals, Google Code Jam and TopCoder. NEAR is backed by A16Z, Pantera Capital, Electric Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Blockchain.com, and Baidu Ventures. To learn more about NEAR, please visit their official website or follow their Twitter and Telegram.

## More than just Storage: Filecoin offers a unique Web3 Building Block

Filecoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer data network, allowing anyone to store or validate data within its network. Under the hood, all Filecoin nodes use the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), one of the most widely-used data distribution protocols for Web3.

The Filecoin Network offers the following features that make it attractive for both Web2 and Web3 use cases and developers.

- **Content Addressable Data** — Filecoin is a decentralized storage network built on content addressable data at the heart of Web3. 
- **erifiable Storage with Proofs** — The Filecoin blockchain verifies that all data is continuously stored on the network every 24 hours; proof of this can be bridged to other smart contract systems.
- **Decentralized Storage at Scale** — The Filecoin network is onboarding more than 1PiB of storage capacity every hour.
- **Flexible Storage Options** — A global network of storage providers, each offering different features and local optimizations, allow for maximal composability and emergence.

Filecoin brings a unique building block to the Web3 ecosystem and the intersection of NEAR and Filecoin promises new applications and use cases. You can learn more about business opportunities on Filecoin in this video.

## Joint Grants for Filecoin and NEAR Application Development

Filecoin and NEAR are offering a $300,000 grant pool to developers. Any project that demonstrates or enables integrations between Filecoin and NEAR are encouraged to apply and all eligible projects will receive funding towards further development.

Here are some potential areas of exploration:

- **Decentralized Storage SDK + Demonstration app**: An SDK for NEAR users to seamlessly employ Filecoin’s decentralized storage network, along with a demonstration application. The accompanying demonstration application should showcase the functionality of the SDK, as well as serve as a reference architecture for other NEAR developers.
- **Database APIs**: Database overlays to make interacting with raw storage on Filecoin easier and more efficient.
- **New Web3 Applications**:
    - Novel Web3 interactions such as Data Bounties, DataDAOs, Verifiable Computation, Perpetual Storage, Layer 2 Protocols, etc., leveraging verifiable storage on Filecoin, smart contract abilities on NEAR, and data bridge built by Textile.
    - DeFi applications that interact with textile.io or other reputation indexes for Filecoin storage providers. These applications can also utilize the Aurora Bridge.
- **Exploratory**: Applications written in assembly script using web3.storage. For example, applications that allow users to store encrypted data on Filecoin that can only be decrypted by users with NEAR private keys, in that way keeping ownership of their data.

If you would like to participate in the Filecoin-NEAR Grant Program, please [apply here](https://github.com/filecoin-project/devgrants/blob/master/rfps/near-and-filecoin.md) by **October 31, 2021** for consideration. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so early submissions are encouraged.

Today we are excited to deepen the collaboration between the Filecoin ecosystem and the NEAR ecosystem with the launch of a $300,000 joint grants program designed to support developers.

Filecoin Launches Collaboration with NEAR to Accelerate the Growth of the Web3 Stack

We are excited to announce the first in a series of NEAR MetaBUIDL hackathons with $1M in prizes until the end of the year! While most activities at these hackathons will be online, in a novel mixed physical-virtual format several cities will be hosting hackers in-person. We’re opening the floodgates to showcase what’s possible in the NEARverse. Come hack with us and build the apps that will onboard the next billion users to Web3.

## The first MetaBUIDL Hackathon runs from Aug 27 to Sep 12.

[Register Now](https://metabuidl.splashthat.com/)

We’re encouraging the next wave of BUILDers to choose NEAR because it’s the only blockchain platform that is ready to support the mass adoption of dapps. The NEAR wallet offers a hassle-free experience for Web2 users on mobile or desktop. Fiat on/off ramps are available all over the world. NEAR developer tools work across familiar Web2 languages like Rust and TypeScript, along with common Web3 tools like Solidity and Substrate chains.

A series of three hackathons from August through the end of this year will provide endless possibilities to boost groundbreaking business ideas. By joining these epic events, participants will  get access to countless community-driven innovations from across the NEAR ecosystem.

## Hackathons

The NEAR MetaBUIDL hackathons will feature exciting themes focused on solving real-world problems when combined with the new reality of Metaverse and Blockchain. All developers are welcome to ideate and build on existing concepts or develop their own.

NEAR Foundation has committed up to **$1M in prizes** linked to specific tracks and bounties. The MetaBUIDL theme explores how web3 technology meshes with our work and play. All developers and ecosystem members building in one of these areas, or interested in exploring them with a team, are encouraged [to apply](https://metabuidl.splashthat.com/).

## Hack-Nodes

All NEAR Hackathons will be hybrid physical-virtual: Online for global accessibility with  in-person meet-ups in select cities for a more social, traditional team-building experience. The NEAR Community team will spin up events––called Hack-Nodes––in  a minimum of three cities per hackathon. These Hack-Node activations will include local presentations, judging, and live-streamed events.

Community members are welcome to spin up local Hack-Nodes in their areas. [The details for creating local Hack-Nodes are open source](https://gov.near.org/t/hack-nodes-open-call/3898). We encourage Guilds and community leaders to start Hack-Nodes wherever they are in the world to welcome friends and colleagues into the NEAR experience. NEAR will contribute funds to support local events and even dedicated prize pools to encourage participation.  Due to continuing COVID-19 concerns, Hack-Nodes will be required to comply with local regulations and take appropriate safety precautions.

## The MetaBUIDL Goal

Hackathons are essential to educate and excite novice and seasoned BUILDers alike about the possibilities of crypto and Web3 and we’re excited to bring this series to the NEAR community. . Many of the biggest and best companies in the ecosystem began as hackathon projects, including 1inch, which is now the second-largest decentralized exchange by usage.

MetaBUIDL Hackathon winners who choose to pursue their projects beyond the hackathons will be eligible for grants and investment from NEAR ecosystem funds such as [Open Web Collective](https://www.openwebcollective.com/), NEAR Foundation, NEAR Asia, and major VCs who will participate  as judges.

Any participating team is also encouraged to explore funding opportunities and support beyond the hackathon, even if they don’t win a bounty or prize category. For example, the  NEAR Grants Program and Community Fund, which is run by a series of DAOs, offer support and funding to turn hacks into real products.

The time for mass crypto adoption is here and it will happen on NEAR. Whether you are a seasoned Web3 engineer, an experienced developer exploring crypto, or a novice excited to learn what’s possible, there is a place for you in the NEAR ecosystem. [Apply to participate](https://metabuidl.splashthat.com/) in the MetaBUIDL Hackathon series by August 27th!

[Learn More About MetaBUIDL](https://metabuidl.splashthat.com/)

The Metaverse is manifesting as work and play intertwine the physical and digital. It's our duty to ensure it's open, secure, and in the power of the people. Time to METABUIDL with NEAR!

MetaBUIDL: Build the Metaverse at NEAR Hackathon with $1M in Prizes

The NEAR Ecosystem is excited to welcome Octopus Network onto NEAR Protocol. As a decentralized appchain network, Octopus Network inaugurates a new frontier of innovation on NEAR Protocol for the hundreds of developers and entrepreneurs looking to launch applications on their own blockchain. 

Notably, the NEAR Foundation has reached an agreement with the Octopus Foundation to invest one million dollars, so as to become Octopus Network’s exclusive strategic investor.

While Octopus Network has tested out multiple Layer 1 blockchains including Cosmos, Polkadot, and others, they have selected NEAR to be the ‘mother-chain’ of the network. Faster than Cosmos Chains, and more affordable and scalable than Polkadot ‘Parachains’, NEAR Protocol welcomes the Octopus Team and the multiple communities interested in launching appchains on Octopus Network! 

## A New Frontier of Innovation on NEAR Protocol: Octopus Appchains

Octopus Network Relay will launch as a smart contract on NEAR to provide a foundational infrastructure for a validator marketplace between validators, and appchains launched through Octopus. As a home for developers and entrepreneurs looking to launch their own blockchain with customizable crypto-economic and governance parameters, Octopus Network provides affordable and easy integration with NEAR. In line with this design, Octopus Network is built around the OCT Token: A fungible, non-inflationary utility token, that is required for staking on different appchains built on top of the protocol. Validators secure Octopus appchains in return for appchain’s native token rewards. 

> “Octopus provides out-of-the-box security, interoperability, and on-chain governance to projects looking to create a specific chain for their application.”

**Economically**: Validators stake OCT Tokens to earn rewards from the respective application chains on Octopus Network. OCT Tokens are non-inflatable., 

**Governance**: OCT Token holders do not partake in the governance of different application-chains: That opportunity is left to native token holders of the respective chain. 

In the long term, Octopus Network will function as a composable means by which applications can operate with different security parameters on NEAR: Some applications may not need such high security from validators in order to prosper, while others may require more over time. Octopus Network effectively allows for developers on NEAR to quickly spin-up applications with low security in a cost-effective manner and with respect to unique crypto-economic or governance parameters. 

**Illia Polosukhin**, Co-Founder of NEAR commented:

> “NEAR’s vision is to give people control of their money, data and power of governance. To do that NEAR is building and funding various efforts for developers to build applications with such properties. Octopus’ multi-chain network architecture allows developers to cheaply and easily spin up self governed app chains. Unlocking use cases which normally wouldn’t be a good fit for a shared smart contract platform. It’s exciting to closely partner with the Octopus team, who have been working on multi-chain interoperability for the past few years to bring this to reality.”

Notably, the team behind Octopus Network is exceptionally talented and experienced in both crypto and mainstream software development: With a team of eight engineers, they have successfully built IBC for Substrate, and also offered the initial Substrate online training course in China with other Substrate enthusiasts  (from which a number of projects have originated from). Most notably, they are also active participants and co-organizers of the Rust community in China (they actively organize RustCon in China). 

**Octopus Network**:

> “We’re excited to form a strategic partnership with NEAR Protocol. NEAR has been widely recognized as one of the best technical teams in the whole blockchain space.” said Louis Liu, founder of Octopus Network. “Sharding, layer 2, and multi-chains are the most promising potential architectures of next generation blockchains, each having unique value and advantages over the others. The future of the blockchain universe will most likely involve all these architectures which will coexist with each other. NEAR Protocol has been in the leading position of homogeneous sharding protocols. By teaming with NEAR, Octopus could launch a novel multi-chains network in 2021, which provides unprecedented flexible cost effective shared security and interoperability to appchains. By leveraging a prosperous and sustainable appchain ecosystem together with partners, Octopus Network has the potential to take the lead in multi-chain direction.”

With appchains deployed on NEAR through Octopus Network, a world of new applications, crypto-economic models, governance mechanisms and decentralized solutions are poised to launch on NEAR Protocol.

As a decentralized appchain network, Octopus Network inaugurates a new frontier of innovation on NEAR Protocol for the hundreds of developers and entrepreneurs looking to launch applications on their own blockchain.

Octopus Network Partners with NEAR

The NEAR Foundation (“NF”) is a unique kind of organization. It helped to launch both a technological platform — the NEAR Protocol — and the ecosystem around it.  

The Foundation, which was introduced briefly last year, is a Swiss-based nonprofit, non-beneficiary organization which uses the power of its financial and operational resources to support the same mission as the overall NEAR Collective, which is the grouping of all active participants who make up and drive the NEAR ecosystem. This mission is:

…to accelerate the world’s transition to open technologies by growing and enabling a community of developers and creators.

In line with the core value of Openness, the goal of this post is to provide more clarity about how the NF organizes itself, how it operates, how it defines success and what vision it is working to achieve.

## The Vision of the NF

While it shares a mission with the entirety of the NEAR Collective, the Foundation’s role in this is to realize a more specific vision: 

…a self-sufficient ecosystem of creators, developers, entrepreneurs, community members and tokenholders whose collaborative efforts make the NEAR ecosystem the best place to build massively impactful projects in the Open Web.

This vision requires that NEAR become the **best ecosystem in the world** on several fronts:

NEAR needs to have the best ecosystem-level clarity. This means that all participants in the ecosystem have a clear understanding of what the platform is good for, what’s going on in the ecosystem and how to access resources.  Large-scale decisions that affect the community, for example large resource allocations or technical governance, are done with proper community input. 

NEAR needs to have the best onboarding. Within seconds of first hearing about NEAR, a prospective builder understands what they can build with NEAR and how it’s different from other options. Within the first minute, they are connected with a real human being who can help “sherpa” them through available resources. Within a few more, they are embedded in whatever communities can best support their journey by answering questions, testing products and driving early adoption.

NEAR needs to have the best founder experience. When building their organization, they have easy access to the information they need to make good decisions about hiring, incorporation, compensation, legal and regulatory matters.  They have easy access to a clear menu of financing options and support as they navigate them. They have access to an informed, engaged and highly competent pool of human resources for all the roles they need to hire for.

NEAR needs to have the best developer experience. When building their product, devs are confident that they are building on the most reliable and effective technology possible.  They have easy access to basic explanations, working examples and documentation. They clearly understand the ecosystem of tools, products and projects that are available to help them and their journey from idea to launch is rapid, iterative, painless and supported by an active, inclusive community. They are also supported by a wide range of project integrations (for example, wallets, payment processors and custody) both to help them build their product and take it to market.

NEAR needs to have the best go-to-market support. When initially testing their product, builders have easy access to an engaged community of early adopters who can help them rapidly find product/market fit.  During launch, this community helps them evangelize the product. Builders have access to open knowledge bases of best practices for everything from consumer onboarding to security to growth strategies.  After launch, they are supported by broad access to customers, deep secondary markets and continued access to partnerships, capital and exit opportunities.

The NF’s goal is to accomplish these things **indirectly**. Thus, rather than operating in the ecosystem as an active participant, wherever possible it will make sure this vision is realized by other members of the community in a high quality, scalable and ultimately self-sufficient manner. 

What does success for the NEAR ecosystem look like? Ultimately, it comes down to adoption — that the platform and its underlying protocol are in active use by a huge number of people and businesses around the world.  While there are many ways to measure this, the most straightforward 3 which can be used to determine success in the next 18 months are that the NEAR ecosystem generates the most economic activity (GMV), support the highest total market cap of projects and host the most active users of any other blockchain-based ecosystem.

## Analogues for understanding the NF

The NF’s mandate to provide support for the ecosystem, without actively operating it, doesn’t map exactly to any existing business model. It is closest to a full-service venture capital firm like a16z — its “portfolio” comprises all of the applications and companies that operate within the NEAR ecosystem. The NF’s job is to allocate them the resources they need to be successful while supporting them in whatever ways possible. All of this occurs within an extremely fast-moving, tech-forward and competitive space. 

There are a few key differences between the NF and a full-service VC:

1. The “return” of the portfolio is not capital but adoption of the protocol by each of the key stakeholder groups.  So the NF will place its allocations with the intention of receiving better adoption above all else.
2. The NF operates at one level of abstraction higher than a VC firm. Rather than making bets in individual companies, it needs to operate more like a fund-of-funds model and make generalized allocation decisions across asset categories like other VC funds, DAOs, grant buckets and so on.  That allows the NF to stay out of the day-to-day capital allocation game and focus on the high level ecosystem support. 
3. The NF operates at a much larger scale than a typical full service VC. Rather than just a portfolio of dozens of companies, the NF needs to support hundreds or thousands of developers, founders, integrators and beyond.  So its support efforts need to scale to become fully open and community-driven wherever possible.
4. The NF takes on some aspects of a venture accelerator as well, in that, if the ecosystem is missing a particular element, it may incubate the team which develops this particular component or business until it is ready to spin out.

The NF shares another similarity to a defined-horizon VC fund — its long term mission is also to make itself completely unnecessary.  In this case, that’s because a completely well-functioning antifragile ecosystem has all the components it needs to be successful regardless of the efforts of a foundation.  Ideally, companies and communities combine to handle all of the governance, roadmapping and capital allocation activities that the NF handled during the early days of the ecosystem’s development.

In fact, success in 5 years means that the NF has wound down its core entity and sustainably handed off each of its core functions to teams within the ecosystem which have sustainable mandates.

The team of this foundation needs to combine a fanatical focus on adoption with an open source, community-first, inspiration-driven approach to creating alignment among ecosystem participants. Each person needs to be incredibly values-aligned with the 5 key NEAR values and each of its leaders will need to craft and communicate strategy both to internal teams at the NF and to the ecosystem overall.  

## Responsibilities of the NEAR Foundation

As a “portfolio manager” of the NEAR ecosystem, and inline with the vision above, NF is ultimately responsible for driving the success of the applications which make up this ecosystem via 3 major categories of activities:

- **Awareness**: Raise awareness of the NEAR technology, platform and ecosystem such that more developers, community members, enterprises and entrepreneurs build new portfolio companies and projects. This combines education, evangelism, communications, PR, tokenholder relations, analytics and more. 
- **Allocation**: Spend both its discretionary (100M NEAR token endowment) and advisory (major ecosystem token buckets) tokens to capitalize the best initiatives within the ecosystem. This is primarily via a fund-of-funds level of abstraction, so the NF is allocating resources to other people who will actually deploy them “on the ground”.  Its only granular allocation tool is the Grants Program, which accepts applications for small grants for a wide range of ecosystem-supportive activities, which are at least partially informed by the NF’s roadmap. 
- **Support**: Create as much value as possible for ecosystem projects without actually stepping in and operating at all.  This means supporting in a number of key way, including creating the operating framework and coordination so the NEAR community is well organized, well supported and capable of routing people, answers and resources to the teams that would benefit most from them.
- **Operational Advisory**: Create the self-serve resources, best practices and events which give projects the resources they need to solve problems with hiring, HR, legal, regulatory, financial and operational challenges.

A key question is also what the NF is NOT doing.  Except in truly extraordinary cases, the NF is…

- **NOT going to market**: NF is NOT operating GTM initiatives for any specific products or technologies to generate revenue or reach end-users unless it is a test case or early stage incubation for something that will be spun out as an independent initiative. When a project or initiative starts pushing to a market, it must be helmed by an entrepreneur and spun out.
- **NOT developing**: NF is NOT providing direct development support to deals, companies or projects in the ecosystem. This is not a development shop. 
- **NOT running a true VC or syndicate**: NF is NOT allocating to specific projects or entrepreneurs outside of the Grants Program because that doesn’t offer enough leverage. 
- **NOT a lawyer, accountant, etc**: NF will contribute to legal and regulatory discussions but will never be a substitute for hiring professionals in these categories.
In each of these categories, NF may have some exposures but they are only temporary such that it is bootstrapping an effort or supporting an entrepreneur who can spin these things out. 

## How NEAR’s Success is Defined

The NEAR ecosystem’s success is driven by 3 key priorities, which are shared by the NF:

- Awareness: How many people know about and can accurately describe NEAR’s value proposition?
- Adoption: How much usage is the platform getting from each of its key stakeholder groups:
    1. Consumers (Monthly Active Accounts, “MAA”)
    2. Financials, (Total Value Locked, “TVL”)
    3. Developers, (Monthly Active Developers, “MAD”)
    4. Apps, (Total financing raised)
    5. Community Members, (Onchain Community Members)
- Credibility / “Legitness”: Do people within each stakeholder group who know about NEAR have a very high opinion of its quality and prospects for success?

The NEAR ecosystem’s overall success is difficult to measure, but two metrics which represent opposite ends of the spectrum are the total market cap of projects within the ecosystem (but which can be influenced heavily by market forces) and the gross marketplace value of transactions driven by the platform (both on chain and off).

## How Culture and Values Apply

NEAR has always been primarily driven by deeply technical people trying to apply the lessons of Silicon Valley startups to actually build something real humans want using the blockchain technology. This project wasn’t started and doesn’t continue because of commercial intent but rather to create a rippling wave of change and value creation across the application stack.

Our values reflect this and everyone actually works hard to live by them.  Below are the values themselves as well as the way the NF specifically embraces them and where it needs to do better:

1. **ECOSYSTEM-FIRST**: always put the health and success of the ecosystem above any individual’s interest.
    - The NF works tirelessly to create value for participants in the ecosystem. Everything from resource sharing to team vesting contracts are structured such that what matters most is the overall health of the ecosystem.
2. **OPENNESS**: operate transparently and consistently share knowledge to build open communities.
    - The NF has historically been strong in the sharing of resources and education but needs to put the time into better communication around its activities in order to better include the community.
3. **PRAGMATISM OVER PERFECTION**: find the right solution not the ideal solution and beat dogmatism by openly considering all ideas.
    - The NF doesn’t play favorites and is ultimately here to make everyone successful, regardless of where they come from.  It has avoided many pitfalls of bureaucracy along the way, and has a healthy dose of pragmatism. 
4. **MAKE IT FEEL SIMPLE**: strive to make the complex feel simple so the technology, platform and ecosystem are accessible to all.
    - The NF doesn’t make first party products but it is a service organization. Some of its services to teams in the ecosystem (eg routing deals or help requests or just making internal team requests for resources smoother) could be greatly simplified, which has been a focus in early summer 2021.
5. **GROW CONSTANTLY**: learn, improve and fail productively so the ecosystem and the community are always becoming more effective.
    - The NF has liberally supported team members in their personal (eg managerial) growth.  Early summer 2021 efforts are focused on helping spread the resources for ecosystem participants to also learn and grow themselves, for example by contributing to the Open Web Atlas.

## Operating the NF

The NF is a porous, open organization so many of its activities will be done as openly as possible but it still has many internal processes to keep the team aligned and performant. Its rhythm is as follows:

- Annually: 
    - Performance reviews across all teams (NFC, leadership, team leads, members)
    - Review of Mission, Vision, Values and multi-year Objectives (NFC, leadership, team leads)
- Quarterly:
    - Review individual team Missions and Visions (leadership, team leads)
    - Review prior quarter’s OKRs (leadership, team leads)
    - Submit, review and approve forward-looking quarter’s OKRs (leadership, team leads)
    - NF Council meets officially (NFC, leadership, team leads)
- Monthly: 
    - Coordinate or seed the hosting of external-facing Town Hall events with the community (community team)
    - Prepare and publish the Ecosystem Review to NFC and to the community (leadership support team)
    - NF Council calls informally (NFC, Leadership)
- Bi-weekly: 
    - Internal All Hands sessions to coordinate internal teams (everyone)
    - Review KR progress (leadership with team leads, team leads with members)
    - Coordinate 2-week sprints (team leads with members)

## The Future and Scorecard of the NF

The NF has provided — and will continue to provide — many of the early resources that have been helpful to the early ecosystem but its ultimate goal is to make itself completely redundant and unnecessary by establishing robust communities across the ecosystem to handle all of its core functions.

As noted in the vision previously, the role of the NF is thus the role of any great entrepreneur — to scale itself out such that better teams and better leaders are able to take up the charge. It will bootstrap where necessary and then empower the ecosystem around it to improve and scale each of its areas of focus.

The NF has made extraordinary progress in less than 2 years towards creating a self-sufficient ecosystem but there is still plenty to bootstrap and many more handoffs to coordinate.  NF will continue to deploy resources heavily to support key efforts but it will make sure all core support activities it provides are eventually made self-sufficient and are run by great entrepreneurs with sustainable businesses. 

Success for the NF in 5 years thus means that it has wound down its core entity and sustainably handed off each of its core functions to teams within the ecosystem which have sustainable mandates. It’s an ambitious goal but an achievable one.

In the long term, the NEAR ecosystem itself will become the hub of a global universe of blockchains which support the Open Web. While there are many paths to get there and it will ultimately be driven by the founders and developers of the NEAR ecosystem, the NF is here to guide and support their journeys all along the way.

The NEAR Foundation (“NF”) is a unique kind of organization. It helped to launch both a technological platform — the NEAR Protocol — and the ecosystem around it.

What the NEAR Foundation Does

NEAR Protocol is happy to announce a strategic partnership with Mask Network. NEAR Protocol and Mask Network will cooperate between their base layer technologies as well as on the application front. The Rainbow Bridge, the NEAR EVM, NEAR Drops, and other key components are expected to be integrated when launched, in order to accelerate widespread adoption and engagement with NEAR Protocol and the Mask Network.

The cooperation will start with a joint bounty, allowing developers from both communities to join forces and explore new opportunities at the intersection of these two protocols. The first bounty will be to facilitate **the integration of the NEAR Wallet into the Mask Network**, creating a solid foundation for future deployment of more NEAR based applications.

The NEAR Wallet is NEAR Protocol’s non-custodial web wallet, using local storage on the users computer to store private keys in an open file format. This design is meant to provide more wallet options, and makes it easier to expand the NEAR developer community, while also marketing the determination of NEAR Protocol and Mask Network to support one another in creating a vibrant decentralized web and finance ecosystem.

The product idea of the Mask Network is a natural fit with the mission of NEAR Protocol. Both want to create a more free and open web, allowing users to control their own funds, data, and identity. This bounty is just the starting point of cooperation between the two projects. We have already planned a series of deeper integration projects and joint ventures that will be released to our communities over time. If you are interested in the Mask Network and NEAR Protocol, come join us!

The details of the Bounty are [outlined here](https://github.com/DimensionDev/Maskbook/issues/2602).

NEAR Protocol and Mask Network will cooperate between their base layer technologies as well as on the application front.

NEAR Protocol Partners with Mask Network

Today is a momentous day for the NEAR blockchain and the NEAR ecosystem: The launch of Simple Nightshade, the first step toward a fully sharded and secure blockchain. 

Since NEAR released the design for the protocol back in 2019, it was always meant to be a sharded blockchain. However, when preparing for the launch in early 2020, we realized that there was no need to launch a completely sharded network. 

Sharding is a very complex piece of technology – which we’ll be explaining in detail over the coming weeks on our Medium blog – and the network was brand new. It didn’t need to be capable of handling hundreds of millions of transactions at launch. 

Since then, the average number of daily transactions has risen to more than 300k. With the emergence of more and more projects building on NEAR, the number of transactions is only going to increase in the coming months. 

While the network is still currently using only 13% of the total capacity, we wanted to start the transition to sharding now to avoid any unpleasant surprises and ensure we can support all the applications on NEAR. Today is the start of that transition. 

Below, we’ll briefly discuss how sharding — a partitioning of the NEAR protocol — splits the work of processing transactions across many participating nodes. We’ll also offer some details on why this matters for NEAR’s booming community of developers and users.  

## Simple Nightshade

Today, the code for phase 0 was successfully deployed to the mainnet – it can take several hours or days for the code to be integrated by all network participants. 

This phase, nicknamed Simple Nightshade, will kickstart a year of changes and additions to the NEAR blockchain that when complete, will make it super-fast, incredibly secure, and capable of onboarding millions of users into the world of Web3 without skipping a beat. 

In this initial phase, we will shard the state, but not processing – meaning the blockchain will still be validated by all the network’s validators. The state will be split into four shards, significantly increasing the throughput of the network.  

Before sharding, blockchains would become congested as the project became more popular.
In this step, we have built a mechanism to split a shard into multiple parts through live upgrades, which will serve as the foundation for dynamic resharding in the future – more on that later. Meanwhile, because every shard is still validated by all validators, the safety guarantees remain the same. 

## What does this mean for users? 

It means they get the same simple, easy-to-use experience, but with increased speed and performance. One of blockchain’s biggest challenges has been scalability: how does a network grow to handle increased activity without compromising on security? Our solution to that question is Nightshade Sharding.  

While there are many new blockchains claiming to have thousands of transactions per second (TPS) and many layer 2 scaling solutions, due to their non-sharded designs, they would all hit an upper limit of what the network could handle eventually. 

NEAR’s Nightshade Sharding, on the other hand, allows NEAR Protocol to scale linearly with the number of shards, thereby having the ability to satisfy the demand for transactions as more and more users start to use NEAR. Ultimately it prepares NEAR for mass consumer adoption of billions of users.

## What does this mean for developers? 

Similar to users, developers will not have to change existing processes in order to take advantage of the increase in speed and scalability. 

Thanks to Nightshade’s homogeneous design, developers are not exposed to the details of sharding from the very beginning and they will remain unaffected by this upgrade. More specifically, internally we treat cross-contract calls the same regardless of whether two contracts are on the same shard. Therefore, developers should expect no changes to their experience of developing on NEAR.

## What does Nightshade Sharding change about the network’s performance? 

While transactions per second are often used as a measure of a network’s speed, there are many other factors that go into how quickly a blockchain can verify a transaction. 

At NEAR, network congestion, transaction finality and cost are all parts of the puzzle when it comes to assessing how ‘quick’ a network is. For reference, for token transfers, on one shard we can do 800-1000 TPS and with the upcoming sharding with four shards, we will be able to do a minimum of 2500-3000 TPS.

Ultimately, NEAR’s Nightshade is theoretically limitless (by increasing the number of shards) and can handle millions of transactions per second. 

## What comes after Phase 0? 

Early in 2022, Phase 1 will begin. In this phase, we introduce a new role: chunk-only producers, who only validate one shard. They produce chunks (shard blocks) for some specific shard and only need to run inexpensive hardware, without sacrificing the security of the network. 

The introduction of chunk-only producers also helps increase the total number of validators and improve the decentralization of NEAR as a whole. Once this phase is complete, we will have 200-400 validators and only a fraction of them (block producers) need to run more expensive hardware. We expect to deliver phase 1 in January 2022.

## Phase 2: Nightshade

In this phase, we finish the implementation of challenges, thereby eliminating the need for any validators to track all the shards. Once this step is completed, both state and processing will be fully sharded. This will also further lower the hardware requirements of running a block producer on NEAR, making the network more accessible for validators. We expect to deliver phase 2 in Q3 2022.

## Phase 3: Dynamic Resharding

After phase 2 is complete, we will have a fully functional sharded mainnet with a fixed number of shards. In phase 3, we want to expand on that and create the ability for the network to dynamically split and merge shards based on resource utilization. This will make NEAR almost infinitely scalable and resilient to short-term usage spikes. We expect to deliver phase 3 in Q4 2022.

Eventually, the network itself will dynamically adjust the number of shards based on their utilization and no validators will need to validate all the shards. 

Sharding is not the final phase of evolution for NEAR Protocol. Rather, we hope it’s just the beginning. We are simultaneously working on a number of improvements on the protocol level to build a secure, user-friendly, and scalable blockchain that can support mainstream usage and adoption. 

After sharding more and more validators could be recruited to ensure the network remains congestion free.

## An ecosystem primed for growth

In addition to the work on the protocol by NEAR Inc, NEAR Foundation is creating an ecosystem for developers, entrepreneurs, and enterprises to thrive with ambitious funding programs including $800 million worth of global ecosystem funding (now valued at $1.2 billion). 

We’re also seeing a thriving gaming, metaverse, and NFT ecosystem emerging, not to mention a DeFi ecosystem that has gone from strength to strength since mainnet launch one year ago. 

For consumers, we’re making strides forward to make the crypto experience even easier to use. From simple, language-based wallet names, to two-factor authentication, and staking baked right into the wallet. 

This is just the beginning of a period of explosive growth at every level. We can’t wait to show you what’s coming next.

## Get Started Today 

If you’re looking to build on NEAR, check out our [developer resources](https://near.org/developers/). 

If you’re an entrepreneur and want to get started, head for our [Founders space](https://near.org/developers/). 

If you’re looking to create DAOs and Guilds, check out our [Community Page](https://near.org/community/). 




NEAR launches Simple Nightshade, the first step toward a fully sharded and secure blockchain and the beginning of the mass adoption age.

NEAR Launches Nightshade Sharding, Paving the Way for Mass Adoption

We are thrilled to announce that Injective will be integrating with NEAR Protocol to expand our multi-chain trading universe.

Our mission at Injective is to create a more free and inclusive financial system through decentralization. We aim to deliver a novel decentralized multi-chain ecosystem that acts as a global and borderless network of market exposure. On Injective, users will be able to seamlessly trade assets stemming from discrete blockchain networks while retaining a vibrant Ethereum-native experience.

With our NEAR integration, Injective will be able to launch derivatives that are based on the NEAR token alongside native assets built on the NEAR blockchain. Bridging assets across Injective and NEAR will be accomplished via Aurora, which provides an Ethereum-compatible smart contract platform powered by NEAR.

## An Introduction to NEAR

NEAR is a delegated proof of stake (DPos) blockchain that utilizes sharding in order to increase scalability while also retaining a distinct set of interoperability features. In simple terms, sharding is a process via which a blockchain is partitioned into smaller components or “shards’’ which in theory helps to improve scalability since nodes would be responsible for verifying transactions that occur on specific shards rather than on the entire network.

NEAR’s unique sharding approach (Nightshade) works via processing transactions in parallel across multiple sharded chains which in theory accelerates the transaction throughput of the blockchain.

NEAR also introduces a new consensus mechanism called Doomslug which allows validators to take turns when producing blocks rather than having to compete based on individual stakes. Nightshade coupled with Doomslug work in conjunction to create a protocol that is able to achieve fast transactions with negligible fees.

The protocol is backed by a number of high-profile investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Coinbase, Multicoin, and Pantera Capital.

## Aurora: Ethereum Compatibility on NEAR

Aurora is implemented as a smart contract on the NEAR blockchain.

Aurora is composed of two core components: the Aurora Engine and the Aurora Bridge. The Aurora Engine allows for the deployment of Solidity and Vyper smart contracts while the Aurora Bridge enables the permissionless transfer of tokens and data across Ethereum and Aurora.

In essence, Aurora aims to provide a high-performance blockchain infrastructure layer powered by NEAR while providing a familiar Ethereum focused development experience.

## The Injective Integration with NEAR

We at Injective seek to pioneer a multi-chain ecosystem via which users can seamlessly access novel DeFi markets.

In pursuit of this goal, we have already started exploring integrations with promising layer one blockchains such as Polkadot and Avalanche. Currently, many of these networks offer unique benefits but remain largely siloed which inevitably leads to poor user adoption. On the other hand, Ethereum enjoys an unmatched degree of organic usage while continuing to face scalability and network congestion issues.

Injective helps to rectify the problems that seem to be pervasive within the crypto space today. Users are able to access entirely new markets across chains while still interfacing with an Ethereum-native framework.

> “We are excited to work alongside the team at Aurora and NEAR in order to bring forth a paradigm shift within the multi-chain universe. Users will be able to effortlessly move across unique derivative markets and access a wide array of novel NEAR-based markets not available elsewhere,” said Eric Chen, Injective CEO.

Our work with NEAR is an extension of our overarching mission to create a decentralized multi-chain ecosystem for financial markets. By having Aurora deploy on Injective’s Etheremint layer (the Cosmos EVM implementation), users can have access to extremely low cost token bridging. The ERC-20 token is then bridged over to the Injective Chain where trades can occur. On a frontend level, we abstract away the procedure so the user just sees one transaction rather than the intermediary steps. As a result, new decentralized markets such as NEAR/USDC spots can be made available on Injective in just a few clicks.

> “Bridges between ecosystems simplify and enrich the user experience by allowing developers to access new markets easily. We’re excited to work with Injective Protocol to enhance the interoperability between blockchains and enable the Open Web,” said Alex Shevchenko, Aurora Labs CEO.

A specific NEAR transaction would proceed as illustrated below:

## Injective: A Multi-Chain Future

We are very excited to continue building towards our vision of a truly decentralized financial system that is both free and devoid of all barriers.

The technologies built by the teams at Aurora and NEAR aid us in further expanding the capabilities offered by our protocol. Moving forward, users will have access to a robust Injective Chain that is able to work across disparate layer one networks so novel market creation and trading become more seamless than ever before.


Injective will be able to launch derivatives that are based on the NEAR token alongside native assets built on the NEAR blockchain.

Injective is Integrating NEAR Protocol to Expand our Multi-Chain Trading Ecosystem

## NEAR and The Graph partner to bring Indexing and Querying to the NEAR blockchain 

Developers building applications on NEAR will be able to build subgraphs (open APIs), and index blockchain data more efficiently.

The Graph is excited to announce an official integration plan with NEAR, expanding the decentralized indexing network of NEAR’s infrastructure. The Graph currently supports Ethereum and IPFS. This partnership will support developers to build powerful applications on NEAR using The Graph, and enable developers from all supported ecosystems to explore querying of subgraphs (open APIs) for data across different blockchains. Subgraphs exist for applications like Uniswap, Synthetix, AAVE, Gnosis, Balancer, Foundation, and many others. 

The Graph is the indexing and query layer of the decentralized web. Indexing is a way of structuring and categorizing data so it can be easily searched for and queried by users. Developers build and publish open APIs, called subgraphs, that applications can query using GraphQL. The Graph solves the problem of centralized data indexing by building a decentralized protocol for indexing blockchain data, users no longer have to trust teams to operate servers and developers can deploy to reliable public infrastructure they don’t have to manage. 

## Growing the Open Web with The Graph

NEAR is a decentralized application platform that is secure enough to manage high value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people, putting the power of open technologies in their hands. It is built atop a public proof-of-stake blockchain, which combines the scalability that is needed to drive the Open Web with the common-sense usability that is needed to make it successful.

“NEAR is excited to work with The Graph ecosystem. The Graph Protocol provides essential infrastructure for developers to build and query required representations of blockchain data. Tools like The Graph empower NEAR developers to build decentralized applications faster, which will attract more builders and users to the Open Web,”  said **Illia Polosukhin**, NEAR Co-Founder. 

Eva Beylin, Director of The Graph Foundation added, “We’re excited about NEAR being one of the first multi-blockchain expansions for The Graph, enabling developers to build more interoperable dapps within the Web3 ecosystem.”

The partnership will empower NEAR’s ecosystem builders to build with a truly decentralized indexing layer and allow them to collaborate with The Graph’s network of developers. Furthermore, it provides a solution to composability issues in blockchain by creating decentralized APIs that serve data from a number of different chains.

The Graph aims to grow overall Web3 development and help developers build interoperable applications. The Integration with NEAR will accelerate both projects’ goal of ‘Opening the Web’. 

## About The Graph

The Graph is a protocol and decentralized network for querying and indexing blockchain data. At The Graph, our mission is to make serverless applications possible and to make building on Web3 accessible to anyone. Before NEAR, The Graph was integrated with many applications on Ethereum and IPFS that use subgraphs for retrieving data. To date, over 8,000 subgraphs have been deployed by over 10,000 active developers for applications, such as Uniswap, Synthetix, Aragon, Gnosis, Balancer, Livepeer, DAOstack, AAVE, Decentraland, and many others.

The Graph Foundation invites developers, researchers and community members alike to apply to The Graph Grants Program. Anyone contributing to supported blockchains can apply for a grant for Protocol Infrastructure, Tooling, Decentralized Applications or Community Building. The Foundation is aiming to distribute up to ~25M GRT in grants in The Graph ecosystem in 2021.The Graph would also love to welcome you to be Indexers, Curators and/or Delegators on The Graph’s mainnet. Join The Graph community by introducing yourself in The Graph Discord for technical discussions, join The Graph’s Telegram chat, or follow The Graph on Twitter! The Graph’s developers and members of the community are always eager to chat with you, and The Graph ecosystem has a growing community of developers who support each other.

NEAR and The Graph Partnership

NEAR Foundation is excited to announce that Orange DAO, a crypto collective created by Y Combinator alumni for backing Web3 startups, has selected NEAR as its preferred layer 1 blockchain. 

In turn, NEAR Foundation will invest $15 million into Orange DAO to help support the founders who are building Web3 companies on the NEAR blockchain.

“We are thrilled to have been selected by some of the brightest minds in the world as the preferred layer1 chain on which Orange DAO members will want to build,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation. “We know that community-driven innovation benefits everyone, and this partnership is simply another example of our mission in practice.”

## Bringing startup accelerator expertise to NEAR

Although Y Combinator is not formally involved in the project, Orange DAO is currently made up entirely of YC alumni, including NEAR co-founder Alexander Skidanov. After starting with just a few dozen YC alums, Orange DAO has expanded in recent months to include over a thousand YC founders. 

One of the world’s leading startup accelerators, YC has been integral in developing some of the fastest-growing and most valuable tech brands. Based in Mountain View, California, YC has backed over 3,300 companies for a combined valuation of $600B, including Airbnb, Stripe, Dropbox, Coinbase, Opensea, Twitch, and Reddit. 

YC alums created Orange DAO as a venture structure to both identify and support young crypto startups currently building the future of the Web3 ecosystem. 

Orange DAO is not the first foray into Web3 by YC founders. Back in 2017, hundreds of alumni created the Pioneer Fund, a more traditional venture vehicle, to back Web3 projects. By contrast, Orange DAO operates as a decentralized autonomous organization, using blockchain tech to help multiple users make collective decisions. 

## Why Orange DAO chose NEAR

Unlike other blockchain networks, NEAR offers Web3 software developers an extremely fast, secure, and low-cost protocol—by way of its unique Nightshade sharding approach—for building decentralized applications (dapps). NEAR’s protocol technology, as well as its bridges to other blockchains, and developer ecosystem proved highly attractive to Orange DAO’s founders. 

The Orange DAO team will leverage NEAR’s strengths to back past, present, and aspiring Y Combinator founders. The DAO will do this by helping founders apply and get accepted into YC; providing pre- and post-YC funding; as well as mentoring founders and helping where possible with recruitment and customer acquisition. 

NEAR Foundation’s funding will vest over four years, and the Foundation will also provide time and resources to support YC founders. 

NEAR Foundation is excited to announce that Orange DAO, a crypto collective created by Y Combinator alumni for backing Web3 startups, has selected NEAR as its preferred layer 1 blockchain. 

Orange DAO Selects NEAR Foundation as Web3 Startup Partner

Hello, NEAR world. The global Web3 community rolled into France on April 12-14 for the Paris Blockchain Week Summit. Several key NEAR figures were there to take attendees on a tour of the major happenings in NEAR’s thriving ecosystem. 

PBWS is the flagship event of Paris Blockchain Week. Over two days, more than 3,000 attendees, 70 sponsors, 250 speakers, and 100 media partners hosted sessions on Web3 innovation, governance, international regulatory cooperation, and more. 

NEAR Foundation hosted a number of talks at PBWS from ecosystem figures, as well as a meetup with partner Atka. These events showcased NEAR’s simple, secure and scalable protocol, and its vibrant ecosystem of developers building decentralized apps.

If you weren’t able to make it IRL, worry not. We’ve got highlights from NEAR at PBWS. 

## April 12 — NEAR-Atka Meetup, Keynotes and ‘Building on NEAR’ Panel

Day 1 of PBWS began in the evening with the NEAR-Atka meetup at Palais Brongniart. Attendees mingled and networked over champagne and food. 

NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament kicked the Keynotes event off with opening remarks and an introduction of the NEAR ecosystem. Florian Le Goff, Founder of Synaps, followed Marieke with a talk on Amina, a newly-launched decentralized identity platform, built on NEAR. NEAR Co-founder Illia Polosukhin then updated the audience on NEAR infrastructure and what’s next, including details on protocol security and enterprise solutions. 

Following Polosukhin’s talk, Anton Vaisburd, general manager of NEAR’s Regional Hub in Ukraine took to the stage. The Ukraine Regional Hub is part of NEAR Foundation’s mission to create a network of thriving regional hubs. These NEAR hubs are places for community members to meet up, learn, and create. The Ukraine hub is a resource for efforts like Unchain Fund, a charity project that has raised nearly $10 million for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. 

Day 1 wrapped up with the 90-minute panel “Building on NEAR”. Moderated by Atka’s William Piquard, the panel featured Didier Pironi ([Ref Finance](/ref-finance)), Anton Paisov ([Aurora](/aurora-dev)), Jon Werthen ([ARterra Labs](/arterra)), Jasper De Gooijer ([Flux Protocol](/flux)), and Nadim Kobeissi ([Capsule Social](/capsule-social)). “Building on NEAR” focused on developing decentralized apps on the NEAR protocol. 

Notably, Werthen shared his thoughts on esports on the blockchain. He said it’s imperative to make “Web3 [esports] applications feel like something people are already used to in Web2” apps. 

## April 13 – NEAR Keynote 

On Day 2, NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament gave a keynote address on the Paris Blockchain Week Summit Discovery Stage. She talked about access, movement, and the diversity of distinct apps and economies set to emerge in the near future.

“What is NEAR? A world where people control their assets, data, and power of governance,” said Flament. “An open web world.”

Flament then highlighted NEAR’s simple, infinitely scalable (thanks to Nightshade sharding), and secure next generation platform for dapps—one that is climate neutral. 

On NEAR there is more open access—the individual is empowered while gatekeepers are eliminated. Flament pointed to [YouMinter](/youminter), a decentralized social media app for iOS and Android, where creators can mint and post NFTs. Think of it as an alternative to Instagram, where creators can easily sell their work, instead of handing over data to centralized platforms for free. 

Flament pointed to NEAR Foundation’s partnerships with SailGP and [OrangeDAO](/orangedao) as proof that DAOs are helping to power new economies through community-based decision-making. She also shared special news from the NEAR Ecosystem. London-based tech company [Sweatcoin](/sweat-economy) partnered with NEAR Foundation to create a new movement economy. Sweatcoin is on a mission to inspire a healthier planet by incentivizing people to move more. The NEAR-Sweatcoin partnership brings with it SWEAT, a radical new token that is minted purely by steps. 

“One of NEAR’s core missions is to help onboard the world to Web3, collaborating with SweatCoin allows us to take a step closer to that mission.” said Flament.

Flament was joined on stage by Sweatcoin co-founder Oleg Fomenko, who shared his vision for a world where people have better control of their data, but can also be rewarded for taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint. 

## April 14 – Interactive Roundtable

On the final day of Paris Blockchain Week Summit, Flament led the “Interactive Roundtable: Pioneering the Future of DAOs”. Panelists included NEAR Co-founder Polosukhin, SailGP’s Charlie Dewhurst and Paraswap’s Founder, Mounir Benchelemb. 

Polosukhin is well-known for his love of DAOs. He said that a DAO is essentially an experiment with something, often real world problems, between a community and a company. With the DAO behind Unchain Fund, of which Polosukhin is a member, that meant getting funds and resources to Ukrainians who needed it. 

“In our case, time was of the essence,” said Polosukhin. “You can start a DAO in 5 minutes whereas starting a nonprofit would be more like 5 months or even 5 years.”

“We are building NEAR to lower the barrier to entry for mainstream users,” he said. “Right now, DAOs are beyond regulation territory but we live in the physical world and understand how these new organizations will map. We need to figure out how DAOs can interact with the traditional world. Also, security and making users feel safe using this technology.”

Dewhurst’s appearance came hot on the heels of NEAR Foundation’s partnership with SailGP, which will include the sale of a new sailing team to a NEAR-based DAO. This could revolutionize team ownership but also fan access to and interaction with teams and athletes.  

“A new generation of fans recognize how much of a role they have in shaping a brand or a product,” said Dewhurst. “It’s a lot less top down. Influencers are this whole new category and they’re engaging directly. There is a lot less distance between a brand and its users or customers. That’s also central to Web3 and has been since the beginning.”

Paraswap’s Benchelemb emphasized that DAOs offer individual members a way to contribute through a crypto bank account, established processes, tooling for offline groups to increase online capabilities, and more. “[DAOs] give more people a voice without limitations like background, jurisdiction, social ties, level of access,” he said.

As Benchelemb sees it, the major challenge facing mainstream adoption is the complexity of DAO tooling for non-crypto natives. One solution he offered is simplifying onboarding.

Several key NEAR figures were there to take attendees on a tour of the major happenings in NEAR’s thriving ecosystem. 

Highlights from NEAR at Paris Blockchain Week Summit

Today, ConsenSys announced a partnership between Infura, its leading blockchain development platform, and the NEAR Protocol, an infinitely scalable proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain that is also carbon neutral. The integration, which has been in private beta for two months – and is now widely available – marks Infura’s expansion beyond Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible chains. It also marks a strategic shift toward being a key connector in a multi-chain ecosystem, while improving the overall developer experience. The partnership also gives the NEAR Protocol community access to the more than 430,000 Infura developers already building and scaling the next generation of software in Web3. 

By integrating with NEAR Network, Infura developers will have greater access to a carbon-neutral ecosystem with minimal environmental footprint. Because NEAR operates on a unique sharded blockchain called Nightshade, it has limitless scaling capabilities allowing transaction-heavy decentralized applications to function effortlessly with low fees. Transactions are processed at 14 tps on Ethereum and 7 tps on Bitcoin. As it stands, NEAR embodies similar characteristics as the Ethereum 2.0 roadmap, including PoS and shard chains. Additionally, the partnership allows developers to build decentralized applications using popular programming languages such as Rust and AssemblyScript as well as provides developers access to superior learning resources. By integrating with the NEAR Protocol, Infura provides developers building on its platform greater access to a carbon-neutral ecosystem with minimal environmental footprint.

“The NEAR team has created a protocol that has resonated with our developer audience and we are excited to be supporting their protocol. The Web3 ecosystem continues to grow and innovate, and that innovation isn’t limited to the Ethereum world,” said E.G. Galano, co-founder of Infura. 

Galano continued, “A few years ago, Ethereum was the only platform people considered when deploying new NFTs, DeFi apps, and tokens. Today, developers have many choices and each Layer 1 or Layer 2 protocol approaches scalability problems and usability problems in different ways, which is why we will continue to be an active participant in the NEAR community.”

Developers using Infura’s infrastructure-as-a-service platform have access to networks such as Ethereum, IPFS, and Polygon. The integration with NEAR will be Infura’s second with a non-EVM compatible chain, following the 2020 integration with Filecoin, a peer-to-peer network that facilitates open markets for storing and retrieving files. Furthermore, NEAR’s Rainbow Bridge, in which developers can transfer assets between Ethereum, NEAR, and Aurora, provides optimal security in a fraud-proof, permissionless protocol that puts the trust into technology and removes the need to trust any one person or organization. 

“We’re very proud that NEAR is becoming the first non-ETH layer-one network supported on Infura and are excited to introduce NEAR to their sizable developer community,” said Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol. “Offering broader access to building on NEAR gives devs more options for scaling their decentralized applications easily and securely. NEAR and Infura are aligned in our vision of creating the best possible developer experience to make Web3 easier for all.”

Infura developers can access the NEAR Network now, and continue to advance the multi-chain ecosystem, while onboarding more users to Web3. The move also comes two months after ConsenSys announced the close of its $450 million Series D financing round, bringing the company’s total valuation to $7 billion. 

Integration Paves Way for Web3 Developers to Access More Non-EVM Compatible Blockchains.

Leading Ethereum Development Platform, Infura, Partners with NEAR Protocol, Marking Expansion as a Multi-Chain Connector 

NEAR is a decentralized application platform that is secure enough to manage high value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people, putting the power of the Open Web in their hands.

NEAR is a blockchain that has been built from the ground up to be high-performant, incredibly secure, and infinitely scalable all while supporting sustainability.

Simply put, NEAR is a layer one, sharded, proof-of-stake blockchain built for usability and scalability.

AwesomeNEAR

NEAR Protocol (NEAR)

The highly scalable, developer-friendly blockchain.

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