The NEAR Foundation has always held transparency as one of its core beliefs. Being open to the community, investors, builders and creators is one of the core tenets of being a Web3 project. But it’s become apparent the Foundation needs to do more.
The Foundation hears the frustration from the community, and it wants to be more pro-active in when and how it communicates.
Below is a high level overview of its new communication strategy. More specific details will follow.
Relaunching town halls
Townhalls have been a tool the Foundation has used to communicate its strategy and highlight what the ecosystem has been up to in the past. These will be brought back in an updated format monthly that will focus more on showcasing what’s happening internally at the Foundation, and providing opportunities for projects to play a bigger role in decision making through a Q&A format.
A commitment to regular AMAs
The leadership team will be hosting fortnightly regular AMAs for the community to ask questions around strategy and future direction. The Foundation will also host specific AMAs around key parts of the Foundation to allow the community to ask questions to specific members of the team.
These AMAs will initially be focused around:
- Marketing & Events
- Community
- BD/Funding
- Education
- Legal
Always on signposting
The Foundation has created lots of resources to help the community navigate resources and where to go for help. However, the Foundation is aware these could be sign-posted better. As such, it will shift to an always-on approach to better highlight where people can find the information they need, or speak to someone from the Foundation.
This is just the beginning of this strategy and Foundation will publish more updates on this approach in the coming weeks.
NEAR Foundation is excited to share its newest integration with Binance Custody, an institutional-grade digital asset custody solution. By supporting the NEP-141 standard, Binance Custody enables any institutional user with $NEAR holdings to make use of their highly secure storage infrastructure. The integration also makes it easier for Binance Custody to provide future support for any NEP-141 compatible tokens from projects building on NEAR.
For those not yet in the know, NEP-141 is simply a set of rules that determine how tokens on NEAR can operate. It’s an upgrade from the earlier NEP-21 standard by being simpler for users and developers as well as being cheaper and more efficient.
Click here to learn more about NEAR’s NEP-141 standard
Storing NEAR and NEP-141 compatible tokens on Binance Custody
What does it mean to be able to store NEAR and NEP-141 compatible tokens on Binance Custody? It means institutional users benefit from an integrated ecosystem built to help them manage their assets with world-class security standards backed by multi-party computation technology. Binance Custody is an independent, compliant, and audited custodial solution that currently supports over 230 digital assets.
Click here to learn the difference between custodial and non-custodial wallets
“We’re very excited to be part of NEAR’s journey as their institutional custody partner,” said Athena Yu, VP of Binance Custody. “With this integration, $NEAR token holders benefit from our secure, integrated security and liquidity solutions. We welcome any project building on the NEAR protocol to reach out to us to learn how our institutional infrastructure can help them scale with peace of mind.”
Security on Binance Custody
Platform security is paramount, and Binance Custody makes it easy for institutional users to safely store their digital assets. With this integration, Binance Custody allows investors to not only store their $NEAR tokens securely, but also benefit from liquidity opportunities thanks to the custodian’s integration with the vast Binance ecosystem, which includes the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume.
“A core mission for NEAR is building an ecosystem of diverse communities,” says NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament. “With this partnership, NEAR can welcome to the NEAR ecosystem the many financial institutions that have turned to Binance Custody as their trusted provider for digital assets custody and settlement solutions.”
Binance Custody offers a growing suite of solutions currently including:
- Qualified Wallet: institutional-grade cold vault storage
- Prime Wallet: warm wallet infrastructure offering instantaneous transactions between Binance Custody and the Binance exchange, with sub-accounts.
- Binance Mirror: matches an institution’s cold storage custody funds with 1:1 availability on their Binance exchange account to access deep liquidity venues.
- Cold Convert: trade tokens from cold storage with zero counterparty risk and customized slippage tolerance without compromising on security.
Legal Disclaimer: The information contained in this press release is not directed at nor intended for use by any users, investors or prospective investors, and may not under any circumstances be relied upon when making a decision to invest in any NEAR tokens. Information in this release is not financial/investment advice, please seek independent financial advice.
It’s a tough time to be in Web3 at the moment: war in Europe, crippling inflation, and an increasingly pessimistic outlook over the growth of the global economy. That’s led to a steep contraction of the Web3 ecosystem, both in users and available capital.
But for us at the NEAR Foundation, this moment of great duress is an opportunity to focus our efforts on what we believe is the long term future of this industry. It’s time for conviction.
Web3 and NEAR are both in their early stages, and as such, there are still things that need long-term commitment both in time and resources in order to deliver the promise of decentralized technology.
At its highest level, we believe the focus of the ecosystem should be on bringing more users to Web3, continuing to build out key infrastructure, and demonstrating why NEAR is the best solution for developers, founders and creatives.
A Commitment to the future
NEAR is the best layer one technology platform. Bar none. Ethereum paved the way for companies to build and create their own worlds on top of a blockchain. But NEAR’s sharded design allows millions of people to use this technology without skipping a beat.
NEAR’s focus on being simple to use, easy to build on, and fast to access funding and talent, means NEAR is primed to become the de facto choice for companies looking to onboard the next billion users to Web3.
With the launch of SWEAT, we demonstrated NEAR’s capability of bringing millions of users on chain without outages. But that’s just half the challenge. NEAR is a network for a billion users, but onboarding a billion users requires thousands or millions of applications to create an immersive, inclusive Web3 world.
We are just at the beginning of this journey to making mass adoption happen and as a result, there are lots of views on how we might get there and what steps need to be taken.
At present, the Web3 pie is small. There are fewer than 20,000 developers working consistently across the Web3 space. In Web2, meanwhile, there are more than 20 million Javascript developers worldwide – NEAR has built a Javascript SDK for any Web2 developer curious about Web3.
In terms of users, there are believed to be around 70 million crypto wallet users regularly interacting with a blockchain. There are more than 5 billion internet users who regularly use the internet. NEAR has the easiest onboarding in Web3 thanks to native account abstraction, a key feature to enable onboarding of millions of users.
For us at the Foundation, our goal and strategy is clear: attract the Web2 world to build and use Web3. This is going to take time to do, but firmly paves the way to enable our vision of 1 billion users onboarded into Web3 in 5 years.
The NEAR ecosystem has the talent, the technology and the funding to ensure it can achieve these goals. We plan to continue working on making NEAR the best place for Web2 devs and founders, by introducing more resources for builders, new education initiatives, and more coming soon.
So yes, we are in a tough market. And it’s time for conviction. The next wave of innovation will be a fight for mass adoption. NEAR is the best platform for end-user applications on Web3. NEAR is where mass adoption will happen.
The NEAR Foundation realizes there has been an issue with communication to the NEAR ecosystem. We hear you.
To that end, NEAR Foundation will host its first AMA on Twitter Spaces next Tuesday, November 1, which will be moderated by Community Team member Marcus Ribeiro. Bring your questions and concerns to Foundation CEO Marieke Flament, NEAR Co-founder Illia Polosukhin, and the rest of the Foundation leadership team.
NEAR Foundation’s commitment to improving communication will also include a weekly blog and more regular AMAs designed to update the community on the Foundation’s activities. Bring your ideas to next week’s AMA as well as other future ones!
Stay tuned for AMA details this coming Monday.
NEAR’s ever-growing and engaged community is one of the ecosystem’s greatest strengths. Remember the NEAR Foundation Grants team’s Refer-and-Earn bonus scheme? A number of NEAR community members participated in Refer-and-Earn in early 2022, resulting in grants for dozens of exciting projects currently building on the NEAR ecosystem.
To demonstrate the power of the NEAR community, the Grants team just published its Refer-and-Earn Q2 2022 Report. Let’s take a look at the qualified projects currently building without limits that emerged from the Grants team’s Refer-and-Earn program.
Refer-and-Earn: Q2 Qualified Projects
The NEAR ecosystem is the beneficiary of a number of your recommendations and referrals. A total of 26 quality projects emerged from Refer-and-Earn—each aligning with the NEAR Foundation’s Grants program objectives.
In no particular order, here are the Q2 2022 qualified projects:
- Ref finance
- Roco Finance
- Lazy Learning
- Noft Games
- Atocha Protocol
- Bast.gg
- Omnia Defi
- KwikTrust
- BlockHealth
- Marnotaur
- Exxaverse
- Mambo Heritage
- NEAR mates
- NFT Design Work
- The Gorilla Squad
- Pawn Protocol
- PureFi
- Solely NFT
- Kyoto protocol
- Deepwaters
- Bumper Finance
- Dojo Finance
- Loozr
- bit brawl
- Blockperks
- Boundless Pay
The Grants team has reached out to all Refer-and-Earn referrers. Thanks to your help and support, the Grants team is able to support innovative projects such as those listed above.
Start referring projects to NEAR Grants today
The Grants team would like to extend an invite to those yet to participate in the Refer-and-Earn program. To get started, head over to the NEAR Grants Program Referral Initiative page.
Please note that only projects receiving a grant directly from NEAR Foundation will be eligible for the Refer-and-Earn bonus. Only the first recorded referral will be paid out—duplicate records will not be considered. NEAR Foundation no longer supports DeFi-related projects.
All referrals are calculated at the end of each quarter and only eligible referrals will be contacted.
Please contact [email protected] for additional information or inquiries.
Welcome to the Funding Team Series that highlights important updates about NEAR Foundation’s Grants program, ecosystem and funding strategy.
Part 1 will cover funding beyond Grants, Part 2 will reintroduce NEAR Foundation’s Grant Program, and Part 3 will introduce the Grant Team Handbook, to be published in the coming weeks.
The NEAR Funding team is composed of two sub-teams: the Grants team that manages the Grants program and the Strategic Funding team which focuses on equity investments and the external VC network.
Part 1 / Funding Beyond Grants
1. NEAR ecosystem funding programs
2. Success stories in the NEAR ecosystem
3. Projects that have raised capital
NEAR Foundation has been deeply focused on developing other funding programs within the ecosystem since the start of 2022. Since the creation of Proximity Labs and Aurora and the launch of their own grants program, NEAR Foundation has been redirecting DeFi projects to Proximity and EVM based projects to Aurora.
Please note that Proximity’s, Aurora’s, and all other separate grant programs’ decisions are made independent of NEAR Foundation.
1. Ecosystem funding programs
A number of grant programs have launched and are ongoing in the NEAR ecosystem including: Human Guild for Gaming projects, CypherPunk Guild for privacy projects, and Mintbase for NFT projects. These grant channels are to be used to expand and decentralize our ecosystem in a more efficient manner.
Additionally, to amplify NEAR’s growth, the NEAR Funding team is working with launchpads, accelerators, ecosystem funds, and a VC Network that are all deeply rooted in the NEAR ecosystem.
Launchpads are blockchain-based platforms that help startups and crypto-related projects launch on-chain.
- NEAR Native:
- Aurora:
- NFTs:
- NEAR & Aurora:
For further information about launchpads on NEAR, please visit this guide.
Accelerators help founders validate, build, and de-risk by defining and growing KPIs, developing product-market fit, and fundraising.
Ecosystem Funds are deeply rooted in the NEAR Ecosystem with global or vertical focuses, primarily investing and deploying capital to projects in the NEAR ecosystem.
Regional Hubs, as part of our path toward decentralization, the NEAR Foundation will be redirecting projects related to specific regions. The NEAR Foundation is currently supporting 6 regional hubs in strategic locations (Ukraine, Kenya, Balkans, Vietnam, India and Korea) with others to come. Local experts are able to tailor NEAR initiatives to support local communities and regional ecosystem building.
A summary of different funding programs can be found here.
VC Network
NEAR Foundation’s VC Network includes 300+ VCs representing 30Bn+ in capital that are actively engaged and supporting the growth of projects within NEAR. They have already deployed $300 million to 60 projects thus far.
2. Success stories in the NEAR ecosystem
NearNauts – NFT
The NearNauts team came to NEAR with a vision, received funding from the NEAR Foundation Grants team, and have since launched what is now the top NFT project on NEAR. They started off as a PFP NFT project, utilizing grant funds to develop their website, smart contract, and marketing. Then, they expanded to build out a no-code NFT launchpad and a KYC platform. Their marketplace is on the way featuring a revenue sharing model for holders.
Apollo42 – NFT
The Apollo42 team is a great example of a NEAR Foundation grant recipient that came to NEAR with a vision, and by receiving funding from NF was able to realize that vision. Apollo 42 is an ecosystem of NFT services that started out by building and integrating NFT ranking tools. From there, they went on to develop their own NFT Marketplace with elements of AR built into it. Apollo42 has made some amazing developments along the way, and continues to build out and update their platform.
Blogchain – Social Impact
Capsule Social is another great example of a team that received funding from the NEAR Foundation Grants team and went on to build an amazing platform. With the funding received from NF, the Capsule Social team developed Blogchain, a creative writing platform that empowers writers to publish content and get paid on Web3.
NearBlocks – Tools/Infrastructure
The team behind NearBlocks initially came into the NEAR ecosystem curious about the blockchain and underlying tech. They received a grant from NF and built NearBlocks, a blockchain explorer, search, API and analytics platform with the goal of providing equitable access to blockchain data. Once they launched NearBlocks and saw how successful it was, they went on to build and launch https://nearsend.io/, a tool for bulk transacting. The team also has another exciting project in the works. Located in Indonesia, the team has gone from 3 to 11 full time Rust developers, with the goal of increasing to 50 in the next year.
Sender – Wallet
Sender Wallet is a great case study of a project that came into the NEAR ecosystem with a plan. The team received funding from the NEAR Foundation Grants team to build out and launch a non-custodial browser extension wallet for NEAR users. Sender Wallet has gone on to be one of the most popular wallets in the ecosystem.
3. Projects that have raised capital
Niche – Social Networking app on NEAR – Twitter
Niche is a decentralized social networking app, built to help people discover and grow communities. The mission of Niche is to return agency to individuals and enable them to benefit from their content, not big corporations.
- External Raised capital: $1.8M – Announcement
- Latest update: Launched beta in August, read about their NEAR launch here.
Tonic – Orderbook DEX on NEAR – Twitter
Tonic is a high-performance trading platform that brings the speed and convenience of centralized exchanges to NEAR while being fully decentralized.
- External Raised capital: $5M – Announcement
- Latest update: Launched mainnet in May 2022, launched Tonic Swap in July
Capsule Social – Decentralized social discourse on NEAR – Twitter
Capsule Social launched Blogchain, a Web3 publishing platform with unrivaled protections for free speech, where content is protected by a censorship-resistant architecture.
- External Capital Raised: $2.5M – Announcement
- Latest update: Launched Blogchain, a decentralized Substack competitor in June. You can check out the content on Blogchain or participate in writing here.
Sender Wallet – Browser extension wallet built on NEAR – Twitter
Sender is a browser extension wallet built on NEAR. Its goal is to build a secure and smooth wallet for decentralized digital assets like crypto and NFTs.
- External Capital Raised: $4.5M – Announcement
Interested in getting funded?
If you are interested in funding for your project, check out the following resources:
- Explore NEAR Funding Programs: linktree
- Visit the NEAR website : https://pages.near.org/
- Contact the NEAR Grants team at [email protected]
⌛️ In the next blog post, the NEAR Funding team will reintroduce the NEAR Foundation’s Grant Program, providing grant data and including key updates.
NEARCON 2022 is at full tilt here in the gorgeous city of Lisbon, where the NEAR ecosystem is on full display, with over 2,000 people in attendance. With a distinct carnival atmosphere, NEARCON has been a vibrant, interactive showcase of the ecosystem’s diverse and inspiring talent and creativity. Beyond the myriad of engaging talks and projects demos, there have also been parties, an IRL hackathon, food trucks from around the world, and much more
NEARCON has also seen a bevy of exciting announcements, including some new ecosystem funds, a major Nightshade sharding milestone, and more.
Let’s take a quick look at everything that is new on NEAR from NEARCON.
A number of other announcements will be rolling out over the course of NEARCON, so stay tuned for those tomorrow.
Switchboard Brings Permissionless Oracle Protocol to NEAR
Switchboard Labs launches its permissionless, customizable oracle devnet implementation on NEAR Protocol. The protocol allows developers to build general-purpose data feeds such as price, sports or weather data, opening up a world of new possibilities for developers. Being a permissionless oracle protocol, Switchboard allows a developer to build their own data feed within minutes and have complete customizability, and management over their own feeds.
NearPay brings debit cards creating another bridge between crypto and IRL
NearPay, the bridge between the fiat and crypto world has taken another step forward in helping users access their crypto wherever they are with the launch of a physical debit card. A virtual card is already working in the EU and the UK, and the physical card is due to start delivery during the autumn. On top of that, the NearPay team has plans to expand into the US and Asia over the next 12 months.
Pagoda launches flagship product for dApp developers on NEAR
Pagoda, the easiest Web3 startup platform and a major contributor to the NEAR Protocol, announced today the launch of their flagship developer product. The Pagoda Console provides a robust set of integrated tools to streamline the dApp development experience from a single place.
Pagoda supercharges existing dApps built on NEAR and accelerates the development of new NEAR dApps. Developers, innovators, and founders are empowered with a comprehensive toolset to build, deploy, improve, manage, test, monitor, analyze and interact with their dApps.
Regional Hubs Launch in India and Vietnam
At NEARCON, not one but two regional hubs were announced: India and Vietnam.
The regional hub in India is dedicated to blockchain talent development and innovation. NEAR’s involvement in the country aims to move the dial towards a sustainable and inclusive approach to blockchain development, and a strong group of potential emerging leaders already exists in the region.
In Vietnam, meanwhile, NEAR has partnered with premier venture capital fund GFS Ventures to launch a hub dedicated to ongoing blockchain innovation, education and talent development throughout the region. Vietnam’s digital economy is booming with the pandemic seeing eight million new digital consumers and a doubling of new startups in the country. The nation is actively promoting digital transformation and development and also ranks 5th out of 154 countries in the Global Cryptocurrency Acceptance Index. However, Vietnam tops global rankings when it comes to the percentage of crypto ownership, as one in five of its people (or 20.3 per cent) own crypto.
Fayyr Launches First NFT Marketplace on NEAR for Social Impact Organizations
Fayyr provides a unique online marketplace for users to support social impact causes and artists at the same time. Artists upload their creations to Fayyr and earmark a percentage of the proceeds support an impact organization of their choosing.
Founded by a professor and two students from the University of Waterloo, Fayyr’s vision is to empower global participation in an environment that supports social good using emerging blockchain technology. The team at Fayyr is addressing a gap in the current NFT market by providing a space for charities, non-profits, and social impact organizations to participate in the crypto space through donations from NFT purchases.
NEAR to Form Community Working Group on Ecosystem Governance (NDC)
NEAR is thrilled to be reaching a new milestone on the road to decentralization by creating a new framework for an ecosystem-wide self-governance treasury called the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC). The purpose of the NDC is to shift decision-making to the blockchain itself, making the NEAR community more resilient, transparent, and fair.
This working group will be led and shaped by the NEAR community and will take the next steps necessary to launch and implement the NDC framework. This process, now being launched, aims to serve as a model for the wider Web3 ecosystem for the creation and implementation of truly decentralized, on-chain governance.
Sustainable Learn2Earn with “Coinbase Earn”
Along with being the world’s leading blockchain for developers, with its low fees, high speeds, and infinite scalability, NEAR has always championed the importance of education and sustainability in its mission toward mass adoption of Web3.
Now, in a new, exciting partnership with Coinbase, one of the world’s largest digital currency exchanges, those values will take center stage in Coinbase Earn, a new program aimed at educating users about NEAR and the utility of its native token.
The program will be funded through NEAR staking rewards—a first-of-its-kind, sustainable approach to help users learn about the tokenomics of the NEAR ecosystem, and what makes NEAR the best entry point to Web3.
Women Make Web3
Inclusion and accessibility are at the heart of NEAR Foundation’s mission. Partnering with Forkast, a global digital media platform focused on Web3, NEAR is thrilled to unveil the winners of the inaugural Women in Web3 Changemakers.
In total 1,167 votes were tallied for 180 nominations. Of the nominees, eleven were selected (ten + one tie) and it will be a joy to honor them publicly at NEARCON.
Here are the names of the 2022 Changemakers listed in alphabetical order:
- Amy Soon, Founder, Blu3 DAO
- Bianca Lopes, Identity Advocate and Investor
- Deborah Ojengbede, CEO, AFEN Blockchain
- Erikan Obotetukudo, Founder and General Partner, Audacity
- Lauren Ingram, Founder, Women of Web3
- Medha Parlikar, Co-founder, Casperlabs
- Oluchi Enebeli, Nigeria’s first female blockchain engineer, founder Web3Ladies
- Sian Morson, Founder and Editor of TheBlkChain
- Tammy Kahn, Co-founder and Co-CEO of FYEO
- Tricia Wang, Co-founder and lead Crypto Research and Design Lab (CRADL) at CISA
- Wendy Diamond, Web3 Impact Investor, LDP Ventures, CEO/Founder Women’s Entrepreneurship Day Organization (WEDO)/#ChooseWOMEN
CEO of NEAR Foundation Marieke Flament said: “Together we can inspire one another, become each other’s role models and level the playing field for the next generation of women.”
Selected by public vote, these extraordinary and diverse women hail from all corners of the globe. They are founders, investors, CEOs, engineers, and so much more. “This inaugural list of these incredible eleven Changemakers,” writes Angie Lau, CEO, editor-in-chief, and co-founder of Forkast, “celebrates the trajectory of our collective story. We can’t wait to tell their stories, and share them with the world.”
Tether Finds a New Home at NEAR
NEAR Foundation is excited to announce a new and important partnership with Tether (“USD₮”). The addition of Tether to NEAR’s rapidly growing ecosystem is a major moment for both parties and will be crucial to an increasing presence in DeFi ecosystems.
“We’re excited to launch USD₮ on NEAR, offering its community access to the first, most stable, and trusted stablecoin in the digital token space,” says Paolo Ardoino, CTO at Tether Operations Limited. Marieke Flament, CEO of NEAR Foundation, adds “We look forward to seeing what Tether will achieve with the launch of USD₮ and the vital role it will play in shaping the future of finance and the digital economy.”
For more information on how the stablecoin works, head over to Tether.
NEAR Foundation announces partnership with Few and Far to grow the NEAR NFT ecosystem
Few and Far, the next-generation NFT marketplace built on NEAR Protocol, has been awarded a grant by the NEAR Foundation — and a partnership to significantly increase the advancement of NFTs across the ecosystem.
“We are thrilled to support Few and Far’s mission to provide seamless NFT minting solutions and an easy-to-use marketplace for the NEAR ecosystem and beyond,” says Robbie Lim, GM, Partners & International at NEAR.
“The NEAR Foundation embraces the digital asset revolution and the importance of laying the foundations for web3 gaming, the metaverse economy, and much more.”
Nightshade Sharding Phase 1 is live
On NEARCON Day 1, there was some major Nightshade sharding news. Pagoda, the Web3 startup platform and contributor to NEAR Protocol, announced the launch of Sharding Phase 1—a major technical milestone that increases the number of validators, improves decentralization, and bolsters the network’s resilience.
This is great news for anyone building or creating on NEAR, the network for creating without limits. Sharding Phase 1 is a significant step toward network decentralization and scaling capacity toward billions of transactions. And it will do this without any disruptions for developers, entrepreneurs, end users, and token holders.
This launch is the second part of a four-phase plan to implement Nightshade, a novel sharding design that enables an almost infinitely automated scalable blockchain. Phase 1 follows less than a year from the launch of Phase 0, which marked the very beginning of sharding on the NEAR network.
Pagoda said Nightshade’s subsequent phases are expected to be complete in 2023.
NEAR and Caerus launch a fund for creators
NEAR Foundation also had some exciting news for creators. The Foundation announced a new strategic partnership with Caerus, a recently launched investment firm, to help revolutionize how Web3 intersects with culture and entertainment.
The partnership will see the creation of a $100M venture capital fund to support the development of next-generation platforms, marketplaces, and apps that showcase a range of creators, talent, IP owners and their communities. The Venture Lab, the partnership’s first investment, will be an incubator for creators and IP owners to build and launch projects.
“We’re yet to imagine the plethora of use cases for how Web3 technologies will change how culture is experienced, entertainment is consumed, and value is distributed,” said Nathan Pillai, an executive at IMG/Endeavor. “And that was the genesis of Caerus: to be a catalyst for innovation that unleash projects in sport, music, film, TV, fashion, art and gaming which offer greater equity for all.”
Stay tuned for more updates tomorrow!
With this report, the NEAR Foundation would like to expand the consistent and frequent communication with the NEAR community, to contribute to the long-term health and viability of the ecosystem.
As a result, the Foundation is publishing its first transparency report and committing to quarterly reports moving forward.
The purpose of the Foundation, per its articles of incorporation is promoting and developing new technologies and applications, especially in the fields of open and decentralized software architectures, to enable innovation to benefit people around the world. A dominating but not exclusive focus is set on the promotion and development of the NEAR Protocol and related technologies as well as the promotion and support of applications using the NEAR Protocol.
To deliver on its purpose, the Foundation is organised around 3 core areas of focus awareness, support and governance.
Below the Foundation shares details of how it allocated funding in Q4 2021 and Q1 + Q2 of 2022. This will include the rationale for these decisions and insight into future plans.
In totality, the Foundation deployed $540M in fiat and tokens during these three quarters. The allocation of these funds has helped the ecosystem while it grew at an unprecedented rate.
- The number of accounts on the NEAR Protocol has grown from 1.1 million at the beginning of 2022 to 15.6 million accounts at the end of Q2.
- The number of weekly active developers deploying on mainnet has grown from 250 to 1,500 per week.
- DAOs have surged from 50 to 700 and the number of projects deployed on NEAR has increased from 100 to 750.
The NEAR Foundation in Q4 2021
In Q4 of 2021, the NEAR Foundation announced the launch of an $800 million ecosystem fund. The fund was to be split into four broad groups:
- $350M – Proximity DeFi Grants – to help projects in the space of financial innovation within the NEAR Ecosystem.
- $250M – Foundation Grants – to support projects building on NEAR, through direct investment and grants.
- $100M – Startup Funds – to decentralize capital deployment into dedicated investment funds within the ecosystem.
- $100M – Regional Funds – to establish physical hubs in key regions around the world to provide a local presence.
The below goes into further detail about how much was allocated, how much was committed and what projects were included in the allocation.
| Category | Announcement | Committed |
| Proximity DeFi Grants | $350m | $350m |
| Foundation Grants | $250m | $133m |
| Startup Funds | $100m | $18m |
| Regional Hubs | $100m | $33m |
| Total Ecosystem Fund | $800m | $534m |
| Charity & Education | $6m | |
| Total Capital Deployed | $540m |
Proximity DeFi Grants
Allocation: $350 million
Committed: $350 million
Why DeFi?
DeFi is one of the cornerstones of a healthy blockchain ecosystem. The provision of financial products and services helps users learn the tools necessary to safely navigate a Web3 ecosystem, as well as drive innovation.
DeFi helps other projects grow by facilitating quick, safe, and easy ways to move and swap currencies in and out of projects as they see fit. While the Foundation cannot deploy DeFi primitives itself, it can help support the creation of funds that can. Proximity forms that function inside the NEAR ecosystem.
Proximity is a research and development firm supporting projects building decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on NEAR and Aurora through grants, advisory services, and developer support.
Proximity’s allocation decisions are independent of the Foundation.
Ecosystem Grants
Allocation: $250 million
Committed: $133 million
Foundation Grants cover a broad range of investments from grant allocation to direct investment and are primarily focused on the following verticals: Infrastructure & Integrations, Gaming & Entertainment, NFTs, and DAOs.
The Foundation has come up with specific strategies and has deployed capital within each vertical.
- Infrastructure and Integrations – Infrastructure is a catch all term for key parts of the ecosystem that are needed to help unlock mass adoption. These include things like wallets, bridges, oracles, zk technologies, privacy tools, and improved tools for developers. Integrations with the NEAR network are crucial to bring more users into web3. The following partnerships have been instrumental in accelerating NEAR’s connection with the rest of web3.
- Key projects: Aurora, Pagoda, Calimero, Switchboard, Octopus, Brave, Coinbase Earn, BitGo, USDT, Fireblocks, Token Terminal, Copper
- Gaming / Entertainment – The web3 gaming space is still wide open. The first iteration of web3 games proved consumer demand. Now, there is room to iterate on long-term sustainable models, introduce permissionless composability, and create new forms of NFTs in addition to games that are primarily or even fully on-chain.
- NFTs – NFTs on NEAR is a large and extremely important opportunity in which NEAR has a unique tech advantage as NEAR NFTs are applications that are programmable. NEAR has a chance to be the first mover in true, long-term, sustainable and unique NFT use cases.
- Key projects: Few & Far, Mintbase, Paras, Seatlab, Stack Sports
- DAOs – We believe NEAR has the strongest no-code, easy to use, DAO tech stack that is already helping to decentrally govern key ecosystems and hundreds of millions of dollars. We will facilitate DAO use cases in investing, gaming, NFTs, sustainability, and science.
- Key projects: AstroDAO, OrangeDAO, SailGP, Flamingo DAO, Unchain Fund
Startup Funds
Allocation: $100 million
Committed: $18 million
The Foundation does not believe it should be the sole distributor of capital to developers and entrepreneurs. Decisions should not be made in a vacuum with just one centralized organization.
In order to further decentralize capital deployment, the Foundation has allocated grant funds to MetaWeb, MOVE Capital, Stealth Capital, Open Web Collective who are focused on funding projects of the NEAR Ecosystem, each with their own thesis.
The Foundation has committed $18 million thus far to these funds that have subsequently made 50+ allocations into NEAR ecosystem projects.
- MetaWeb, another NEAR native investment fund, has raised $30m from Sequoia, in addition to NF. MetaWeb have made 33 investments to date, including Niche, Orderly, Above.Land, and Sender Wallet.
- MOVE Capital is a NEAR native investment fund that has raised $13m from Accomplice and DCG, in addition to NF. MOVE has made 15 investments to date, including Tonic, Calimero, Few & Far, and Sweatcoin.
- Stealth Capital is an investment fund for founders, and brings a wealth of experience supporting the development of projects on Solana and Polygon, as well as NEAR.
- Open Web Collective is a blockchain accelerator and investor backing the builders of the multi-chain, decentralized web. Open Web Collective’s approach to supporting founders is hands-on, user-centric, and analytical.
In addition to these, additional funds will be announced in the coming months, focused on specific verticals such as Sustainability, Sports & Entertainment, and Web2 → Web3.
Collectively the NEAR Foundation believes these funds will help realize its vision of bringing a billion users to Web3 in a healthier, more decentralized way.
Regional Hubs
Allocation: $100 million
Committed: $33 million
To be global, we have to be local.
As part of NEAR’s ambition to reach a billion people, the Foundation believes we need hubs around the world to connect with people where they are – with local events, in local languages, to find the best people wherever they are and forging partnerships with local organizations.
The NEAR Foundation has outlined seven regional hubs as part of its roadmap. So far, three have launched:
- Ukraine Hub (in exile in Lisbon)
- Kenya Hub (Sankore)
- Balkans Hub
In addition to these hubs, the Foundation will soon be announcing Vietnam and India hubs and will be launching additional hubs in South Korea and the US.
The Foundation has chosen these locations based on a variety of factors, including web3 adoption, # of developers, regulatory environments, and available capital.
Funding, Treasury & Decentralisation
In addition, the NEAR Foundation has received $560m from the following key backers: Tiger Capital, FTX, a16z, Circle, Dragon Fly, and many others.
The Foundation has been very conservative in how the funds have been managed. Exposure to non-NEAR assets has been limited, with over $0.5b of funds raised held in fiat in Swiss bank accounts. This strategy helps ensure that the Foundation maintains sufficient resources throughout the market downturn.
This approach has left the Foundation in an extremely strong position to continue to distribute funds to high quality projects for the foreseeable future.
The Foundation is on a continued decentralization journey, and as part of this mandate working on its promise to put tokens in the hands of the community.
The community has come together in response to Illia’s talk from ECC in Paris to implement an ecosystem-wide self-governance treasury called the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC).
The purpose of the NDC is to further decentralize NEAR’s ecosystem governance, distribute more of the Foundation’s token holdings to the community and move decision-making on-chain in order to make our community more resilient, transparent, and fair.
A Community Working Group is now forming to take the next steps to launch and implement the NDC framework. This process is led and shaped by the community. Building better, sustainable self-governance at a global level starts with the community.
Every voice matters and we believe the process now being launched can serve as a model approach across Web3 for the creation and implementation of truly decentralized, on-chain governance.
The Road Ahead
NEAR’s mission is to:
Remove every barrier for Web3 creators, by creating an ecosystem that is uniquely simple, safe, scalable and sustainable.
The NEAR Foundation is committed to this mission. We will continue to support the ecosystem, drive awareness to NEAR and web3, and continue to educate regulators around the world.
The Foundational will continue to invest and deploy capital in the key verticals mentioned above: infrastructure, integrations, gaming / entertainment, NFTs, and DAOs
In addition, the Foundation will continue to decentralize and deploy capital into additional ecosystem funds and regional hubs that are dedicated to the ongoing health of the NEAR ecosystem.
As part of this journey, we are also committing to releasing quarterly transparency reports moving forward to show the NEAR community where capital is deployed and why. This will also include performance of the largest investments, grants, funds, and hubs
For any questions or feedback, please reach out to [email protected].
All of these efforts are to allow you to create without limits.
We believe in a world where creativity is no longer held back by technology.
A world without limits.
Thank you!
A little over a year ago, NEAR held its first conference in Lisbon, Portugal. Fast forward to today and NEAR is back in Portugal, for the next chapter of NEARCON. But things have changed quite a bit in that time.
To celebrate the second anniversary of NEARCON, the NEAR Foundation looks back at all the things the community has achieved across the year.
A catalyst
At NEARCON in 2021, the Foundation announced an $800m fund to help spearhead growth within the ecosystem and to back technological advancements that would simplify development and adoption of Web3.
Under the terms of the agreement, the fund would distribute $250 million in ecosystem grants over four years, establish a regional fund of $100 million, and earmarking $100 million specifically for socially impactful startups and launch a DeFi focused fund, Proximity, with $350m.
Create without limits
In the spring of 2022, the Foundation received $590m from the following key backers: Tiger Capital, FTX, a16z, Circle, DragonFly, and others.
To ensure the Foundation can maintain sufficient resources throughout the market downturn, the Foundation has been very conservative in how the funds have been managed. Exposure to non-NEAR has been limited, with more than $500 million of funds raised held in fiat in Swiss bank accounts.
This approach has left the Foundation in an extremely strong position to continue to distribute funds to high quality projects for the foreseeable future.
Ecosystem Growth
The ecosystem went into overdrive over the last 12 months. Here’s a snapshot of some of the ways the NEAR ecosystem has delivered stellar results:
- Wallets – the number of NEAR wallets has exploded from 1 million at the last NEARCON to more than 19 million today.
- Developers – The NEAR community has grown from 250 to 1,500 developers deploying on MainNet.
- DAOs – Thanks to projects like AstroDAO, NEAR has one of the largest DAO communities in all of Web3, growing from 50 in October 2021 to more than 800 today.
- Projects – When NEAR held its first conference, there were 100 projects developing on its blockchain. Today that number is 790, and growing quickly. The Foundation expects that number to pass 800 before 2022 is finished.
- Total transactions – Another huge growth signal. During NEARCON, the total number of transactions sat around 50 million, today that number is beyond 200 million, showing 4x growth in how active the ecosystem has become.
- External funding – One of the key markers of a healthy ecosystem is its ability to attract external funding above and beyond the Foundation. In the past year, projects building on NEAR have raised more than $300 million from outside funding.
- Total Value Locked – A measure of the relative health of a network’s DeFi ecosystem, during the first conference, there was $50 million in locked value inside DeFi projects. Today, that number is $600 million, peaking at $1.8 billion in April this year.
Keystone Development
During the past year the NEAR Foundation and the NEAR Community have hit several crucial milestones in developing the core components of a healthy and vibrant ecosystem. Below is a summary of how the ecosystem has matured over the last 12 months.
Infrastructure and Integrations
Infrastructure is a catch all term for key parts of the ecosystem that are needed to help unlock mass adoption. These include things like wallets, bridges, oracles, zk technologies, privacy tools, and improved tools for developers.
Integrations with the NEAR network are crucial to bring more users into web3. The following partnerships have been instrumental in accelerating NEAR’s connection with the rest of web3.
Since NEARCON 2021, these key projects have been at the forefront of building out these capabilities on NEAR.
Gaming / Entertainment
The web3 gaming space is still wide open. While it’s still early days for gaming and entertainment in the NEAR universe, the following projects have all deployed on NEAR in the past 12 months.
NFTs
NFTs on NEAR have been growing rapidly over the last 12 months. Below are projects that have either deployed or have seen stellar growth:
DAOs
NEAR has the strongest no-code, easy to use, DAO tech stack. It’s no surprise to see DAO growth be so strong in 2022. Below are projects have accelerated DAO development on NEAR.
The Year Ahead
While it has been a fantastic year for NEAR, the community is just getting started.
This year, the foundations have been laid, and thanks to NEAR’s simple, secure and scalable blockchain, it has an incredibly long runway to build bigger than anywhere in Web3.
NEAR is the simplest, most usable and most scalable tech around. The next 12 months will be all about helping to bring more projects and users to NEAR.
Create without limits!