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The NEAR ecosystem is getting a huge boost in the eastern hemisphere today. NEAR Foundation is appointing Arpit Sharma as managing director for India, South East Asia, and the Middle East to help expand NEAR’s presence in those specific regions and beyond. Sharma brings regional expertise as well as leadership experience from the Polygon ecosystem.

“Arpit brings a wealth of experience and passion about Web3 to the table,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation. “With his impressive track record and deep understanding of this space, I am confident he will play a key role in shaping the future of NEAR.”

Sharma’s appointment marks a major milestone in expanding NEAR’s presence in some of the fastest-growing Web3 hotspots in the world. Having previously worked as the VP of Global Enterprises at Polygon, Sharma led enterprise adoption and business development in the Asia Pacific and Middle East regions. 

“I am thrilled to be in this new role as I see the immense opportunity in the region,” Sharma commented. “There is enormous potential to tap into strong grassroots communities as we continue to use the exciting opportunities presented by Web3 to connect, collaborate and change the world.”

Sharma and NEAR excited by regional opportunities

Favorable demographics and technical resources combined with a strong and diverse consumer base make India, South East Asia, and the Middle East primed for massive Web3 growth in the upcoming decades. As a VP at Polygon, Sharma was a key contributor to enterprise strategy and led the APAC business across enterprise, digital native businesses, and the public sector.

Sharma brings a wealth of regional and cross-industry experience along with extreme enthusiasm for the NEAR protocol, ecosystem, and technology. Sharma will champion Near’s developer-first focus and ease of use to drive onboarding in the APAC and Middle East regions.

“I’m incredibly impressed by the infinite scalability of NEAR’s platform,” Sharma said. “I believe it’s the best protocol in the ecosystem. It not only delivers on its technical promises but gains the support of the developer community. The potential presented in emerging markets is a win-win for everyone.”

As the new regional MD, Sharma will target business opportunities in five of the top ten countries on the 2022 Global Crypto Adoption Index. This includes Vietnam, the Philippines, India, Pakistan, and Thailand. The index has been dominated by emerging markets in recent years, and NEAR’s appointment of Sharma will help the ecosystem benefit from this trend.

India in particular boasts the world’s third-largest startup ecosystem and one of the top Web3 talent pools globally. This includes more than 450 active Web3 startups and four unicorns. Sharma will augment NEAR’s current and rapidly growing presence in APAC, with strong regional hubs in South Korea and Vietnam.

Sharma’s Web3 expertise extends to a wide array of industries, solutions, and use cases. This includes the metaverse, NFTs, supply chain tracking, and stablecoins. He’s led projects in these areas and his versatility will be well-positioned to create more opportunities and a richer ecosystem in the Middle East, South East Asia, and India.

As February draws to a close, NEAR Foundation wanted to share some of the best news headlines from the Near ecosystem and community. 

Let’s take a look at some of the biggest stories from NEAR in February. 

NEAR partners with NYU for Web3 learning workshop

NEAR attracted over 135 pieces of global coverage this month. One of the popular announcements was NEAR’s partnership with New York University’s School of Professional Studies, featuring a Web3 learning workshop. 

Published by Cointelegraph and other top-tier press,  this partnership will expose students, faculty, and commercial partners to the underlying technology powering the Web3 industry. The course will focus on blockchain’s intersection with the sporting industry, exposing those involved to hands-on experience taught by Michael Kelly, a co-founder of Open Forest Protocol, and an early builder in the NEAR Ecosystem.

Former NBA player Baron Davis builds platform for photographers on NEAR

Two-time NBA All-Star Baron Davis announced his plan to transform the image and video rights market, utilizing NEAR’s extensive NFT infrastructure to create a purpose-built platform for photographers. 

In an interview with Decrypt, Davis revealed that his startup SliC Images is teaming up with Mintbase with a $250k grant to build a platform where photographers will have ownership of their channels, replacing long-term predatory corporate deals with a fairer platform facilitating opportunities for all photographers. 

Also featured in Tech Funding News and across the industry press, the announcement has excited the Web3 community around the world. Allowing users to take a photo, add a permanent license, auction it off, and stick it on a blog within five minutes, SliC images are aiming to have a prototype of the platform ready for ETH Denver.

NEAR Foundation and Supermoon announce NEAR House 

As the NEAR community prepares for ETHDenver, and especially NEAR Day, Near Foundation announced Near House in collaboration with Supermoon. 

As covered in the Bitcoin Insider, the unforgettable 8-day experience will see 20 builders and founders from the NEAR ecosystem set up camp in downtown Denver and engage in team-building activities and enthusiastic discussions about NEAR Protocol. NEAR House will also include a curated ETH Denver agenda, enabling the innovators to maximize their experience at the event.

Marieke Flament on more women in Web3

Fast Company spoke with Marieke Flament about the importance of greater participation from women in MENA. The crucial nature of diversity of thought in the boardroom cannot be understated, particularly in high-growth industries like Web3.

In the interview, Marieke outlines that human biases are unavoidable components of all our decision-making. So, ensuring that the group making the decisions is as diverse as possible is a key mission when creating the future on the blockchain.

Calimero amongst 10 Web3 startups to watch in 2023

Following their recent funding announcement, Calimero Network was featured in Tech Funding News’ 10 Web3 startups to watch out for in 2023. The piece covered the exciting startup’s ambition to assist Web2 companies in scaling up their offerings by utilizing the NEAR blockchain. 

Calimero’s founders Sandi and Mario are building the first private sharding infrastructure on the NEAR Protocol, enabling more privacy for companies storing data on blockchains.

NEAR partners with Recur

Towards the end of February, Business Insider covered NEAR’s latest step in enhancing interoperability and accessibility in Web3. Partnering with Recur, a project focused on improving the blockchain-building experience, the NEAR ecosystem will have access to an enterprise-grade Web3 software suite. 

The exciting partnership will make Web3 more accessible for everyone, empowering brands and fans to innovate and explore new digital experiences.

NEAR joins Figment-powered Ledger Live

Wrapping up a busy month of activity, NEAR Foundation announced that NEAR has joined Figment-powered Ledger Live, an all-in-one digital asset management app secured by Ledger’s industry-leading hardware wallets. As covered by the Crypto Reporter, more of the Web3 community will now be able to enjoy the benefits of self-custody whilst helping to secure the NEAR Protocol by staking their tokens. 

That’s all for February. If NEAR Foundation missed anything or you would like to share anything for next month’s roundup, please get in touch!

Hello Nearians,

We are more than halfway through the first quarter of 2023 and wanted to share a quick update on the progress NEAR Foundation has made on community funding and accelerator strategies.

First, if you are a project building on NEAR or interested in building on NEAR and need some immediate support, please fill out this Project Support Form. NEAR Foundation will connect you with the appropriate person or organization who can assist. 

Decentralizing Funding

Important changes in the grant program were announced at the start of January, highlighting the Foundation’s goal for a more decentralized funding process by handing over decision making to community DAOs. What follows is the status of the initial DAOs. 

The Accelerator

From the accelerator side, NEAR Foundation’s past experience with the grants program showed us that founders and teams are in need of a variety of support in order to be successful and take their project to the next level. 

To that end, the Foundation’s strategy consists of three elements: 

  1. We are building a product on NEAR Discovery that will allow founders to connect with a range of contributors (e.g., investors, subject matter experts in areas like legal and finance) who can support them in their journey. We are launching an MVP in early March.
    1. If you are a founder, investor, mentor, or subject matter expert interested in being a beta tester, please fill out this form. 
    2. If you are a founder interested in participating in paid user research, please fill out this form.
  1. We recently made an open call to partner with accelerator programs that can help us fast track support needs for projects. We will be releasing additional open calls in the coming weeks as we continue building out the support network available for founders. These open calls will be for:
    1. Engineering support resources
    2. Talent / Recruitment platforms and services
    3. Legal platforms and services
    4. Back office accounting platforms and services
    5. Marketing services
    6. Product management services
  1. We are continuously developing and identifying learning content and tooling that are most helpful for early stage founders (e.g., accounting software geared towards Web3 teams, Go To Market exemplars, etc.). These resources will be available within the product.

Take 1 minute to help us pick a name for the Accelerator here (survey closes on March 1, 2023)!

If you have any questions on decentralized funding, the DAOs, and Accelerator program, please reach out to the Community Team on Telegram, Discord, and other social media channels used by the NEAR community. 

And again, if your project is building on NEAR or interested in doing so and you are in need of some immediate support, fill out this Project Support Form. NEAR Foundation will connect you with the appropriate person or organization who can assist. 

Near Foundation is excited to announce a new integration with RECUR, a  Web3 platform helping major enterprises launch innovative, digital collectible experiences. With RECUR Builder, an enterprise-grade SaaS, the company is making it easier than ever for projects of all sizes to seamlessly build, scale, and integrate Web3 experiences into their existing products, marketing stack, video games, and more. 

By using RECUR Builder, Web2 brands and other projects can develop on-chain branded experiences that enable the purchase, collection, and resale of digital projects and collectibles, like NFTs and beyond. Beloved brands like Paramount, Hello Kitty, and Nickelodeon currently work with RECUR to create chain-agnostic, bespoke experiences that make NFTs accessible through user-friendly experiences. 

Near’s partnership with RECUR is part of its Web2.5 strategy, functioning as a bridge between the Web2 and Web3 worlds. This new integration will enable Near users to purchase, trade, and engage with RECUR’s extensive roster of licensed intellectual property, along with participation in upcoming mints and the option of ecosystem partnerships and NEAR-native mints.

Building and scaling Web3 experiences

RECUR prides itself on helping businesses and creators to build, distribute, and manage Web3 experiences at scale with enterprise-level tools. With a polished and super user-friendly interface, first-time buyers can purchase NFTs from major global and upcoming brands alike. With a Near Wallet, users can buy NFTs using credit cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay, and crypto (BTC, ETH, USDC). 

 “We are delighted to partner with Near to bring more Web2 companies into the world of Web3, supporting enterprises and fans with future-proof solutions via the RECUR platform,” says Zach Bruch, CEO of Recur. “We have always been passionate about building the future of web3 for everyone, and building alongside partners like Near is a crucial part of that journey.” 

Marieke Flament, CEO of Near Foundation, noted that this partnership with RECUR is part of a larger commitment to making Web3 more accessible for everyone. 

“[We] are excited about partnering with RECUR to empower brands and fans as they invent and explore new digital experiences,” says Flament. “Finding ways to make Web3 more user-friendly is a key part of unlocking the magic of this new chapter, and we believe this partnership with RECUR helps us to do that for many around the globe.” 

A key roadblock to mass Web3 adoption is onboarding. People want to get into Web3 and crypto, but they don’t know how. Seed phrases, private keys, smart contract transactions, technical knowledge and crypto jargon are massive barriers to Web3 entry. 

With Keypom, that’s about to change. Keypom is a new zero friction onboarding protocol with a companion no-code app, built on Near. 

Now users, regardless of their background, can experience the value of Near’s blockchain technology whether or not they have a wallet. Envisioned as a community-driven, public good — or a public utility — Keypom’s APIs (the Keypom Protocol) will be completely fee-free. The Keypom App will also allow non-developers to take full advantage of Keypom’s powerful wallet-less onboarding experiences.

How Keypom’s frictionless onboarding works

Debuting at NEARCON 2022, Keypom’s onboarding solution is entirely on-chain and non-custodial. It’s  run completely on the Near blockchain via Near smart contracts  — not on any centralized databases.

Keypom allows Near and Web3 to function more like Web2, where developers and end-users alike can use applications without Web3’s usually confusing, tedious, time-consuming onboarding. For those looking to explore this technology, Keypom will offer an App, which is currently set to release at ETH Denver 2023. This app will give users and organizations the ability to easily create links to invite users to experience aspects of the Near blockchain without having to set up a wallet first.

On other blockchains, users are commonly onboarded with pre-created, pre-loaded wallets. Keypom operates on the basis of Near’s unique access key model, which allows for much more flexibility in the end user-experience. 

With Keypom, users are given a special type of access key that can be used to experience a crypto application and later be turned into a wallet. This key can be embedded within a simple Web2 style link that, once clicked, allows users to enter into a crypto experience, entirely on-chain and non-custodially. 

Currently, Keypom experiences include receiving $NEAR, NFTs, Tickets to an event, or even dropping the user into a trial account with Near tokens to spend on a preset selection of apps. Once a user has enjoyed an experience with a Keypom link, they can upgrade to a full account and enjoy the entire Near ecosystem.

For organizations that have experienced Keypom and choose to develop on top of their protocol, the Keypom SDK and Wallet Selector plugin allows for a seamless integration of Keypom’s technology into their own apps. Companies will be able to customize every aspect of the user experience to tailor their needs, all while using carefully designed plug-and-play libraries meant to abstract complicated processes for the developer. 

Low-cost, customizable linkdrops

Typically, linkdrops have been used to onboard developers and end-users looking to build on Near. The cost of creating 1,000 accounts via traditional means has been approximately 1,003 $NEAR. With Keypom, the costs for onboarding 1,000 users can fall to about 3.5 $NEAR. 

“We imagine a world where decentralized applications use the Keypom Protocol to create truly immersive user experiences and specialize in specific use-cases spanning across the entire ecosystem,” says Keypom’s Ben Kurrek. “Companies can build anything from event ticketing to subscription-based payments and multi-sig tooling. While the Keypom App would still allow for users to experience these use-cases, it would be at a much smaller scope.”

Keypom can be used, for instance, to automatically register users into a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) as part of the onboarding process. Another use case is for events ticketing. With Keypom, users wouldn’t need a wallet to enter an event, and would also be able to receive a POAP (Proof of Attendance Protocol) NFT.

Perhaps one of the most powerful use cases is the ability for applications to use the Keypom protocol to give their users a free trial. After choosing an account name, the user is instantly signed in and can begin exploring and experiencing the app. Just like with gift cards and other vouchers, the funds can only be used on that dApp thus preventing the possibility for a rug to occur. Once the trial is over, the user can onboard fully with the added option of a payback condition for the funds that the dApp fronted. 

In this new model, Keypom introduces a paradigm shift in Web3 where users experience crypto first and only focus on onboarding once they’ve seen the benefit and gained value.

“We leave it to those building atop the Keypom Protocol to specialize and create applications however they see fit, such as charging custom fees,” says Keypom’s Matt Lockyer. “We’ve created a world where there are no limits and we simply provide the technology that unlocks these experiences.”

For a full explanation on what is possible with Keypom’s customizable linkdrops, check out the Keypom Protocol README. Keypom developer documentation can be found here and Keypom Executive Summary here. 

NEAR Foundation is excited to announce a new partnership with Startup Wise Guys — Europe’s biggest startup accelerator, which has empowered over 350 projects across the world. Together with SWG, the Foundation will bring  20 winning projects from the MetaBUILD III hackathon into an 8-week pre-acceleration program to grow and prepare these new teams to bring their first product iteration to market.

The partnership’s goal is to bring great new products to life in Web3.  After the hack, NEAR Foundation and Startup Wise Guys will prepare all projects to join accelerators, make their first raise, and launch to market. 

Startup Wise Guys’ Pre-Acceleration Program for MetaBUILD

Let’s go over the program. For this occasion, we’ll be running an 8-week program with Startup Wise Guys, covering everything from finding your project’s mission, to setting up team structure, finance, and communication programs for your brand.


Each week covers a specific topic, and will feature both recorded and live events as well as exercises for the projects to take on! 

Each week, all teams will progress to fleshing out their new project’s company setup, brand, and prepare to launch to market. Throughout the program, Startup Wise Guys and NEAR will aid projects with 1-1 mentorships (invited from the ecosystem and from Startup Wise Guys’ network), pitch training and drills, Q&As, and a folder of ready-to-use learning materials.

Onboarding of all projects into the program, and setting expectations for all upcoming weeks and events.

Structuring each project’s journey. How to find a mission and vision for your project long term.

Crafting your project’s pitch and problem-to-be-solved to define your selling points.

Planning the product’s development, and identifying key differentiators to give it unique aspects in the market.

Crisis-handling in companies, and pace. How to maintain your team’s rhythm.

Sales, marketing, and branding for early startups and projects. How to define your vector for gaining traction in the world.

Company communications and finance preparations. How to define your key metrics of success, and prepare a structure to present to investors, as well as how to seek and select the right ones.

How to register your business, understanding your basic legal structure and needs to get started as a company. Also, going over any regulatory requirements like GDPR, and Intellectual Property, as well as minimizing legal needs.

Final day! Graduated projects who completed the program will present their project’s revamped pitches and go out to the world.

Come Hack, and Build On!

NEAR Foundation can’t wait to see the new exciting projects that will be born from MetaBUILD, and is excited about this new partnership with Startup Wise Guys in 2023. 

The Foundation will share all progress along the way as we finalize the submission phase of MetaBUILD and move onto judging. So stay tuned and follow all updates on Twitter!

The NEAR blockchain is an open-source, decentralized blockchain protocol designed to be scalable, developer-friendly, and able to support a wide range of decentralized applications (dApps) and smart contracts.

The NEAR Foundation is the non-profit organization behind the NEAR blockchain, responsible for the development and maintenance of the NEAR Protocol and its associated ecosystem. Since the inception of the grants program, the NEAR Foundation has committed over $90m capital and the ecosystem grew from 0 to over 1,000 teams. 

One of the central lessons learned during this time is that founding teams need a host of contributors in order to be successful, including mentors/advisors, subject matter specific resources (e.g. legal playbooks, go-to-market strategies, tokenomics, etc), and access to investment opportunities. 

NEAR Foundation is looking to partner with existing acceleration programs in two ways:

  1. Leverage the partner’s excellence and experience in running cohort-based acceleration programs. 
  2. Beta test and help build a digital product being developed by NEAR that connects projects with contributors (including investors).
  3. If you’re interested in becoming a NEAR Accelerator Partner, please read the requirements below. Proposals must be submitted via Google Form by February 17th.

*If you’re a startup looking for accelerator programs, NEAR Foundation is looking to engage with the best partners out there. Register your interest in the NEAR Accelerator here.

NEAR Foundation’s Goal 

Attract the most talented early stage teams to NEAR and provide them with the right tools, knowledge, and network to successfully raise external funds at a later stage. 

Success metrics

  1. Quality of founder experience, as measured by an NPS score.
  2. Ability for founders that have graduated from the accelerator(s) to raise their first or next round within a year of graduation.

Requirements

NEAR Foundation will be assessing proposals based on the two dimensions explained below: the Accelerator Partner Requirements and the Digital Product Beta Participation Requirements. 

Accelerator Partner Requirements

  1. Strong sourcing capabilities in the areas of our investment thesis

NEAR Foundation believes in selecting teams building projects with real world, utility-based use cases that tap into the existing pools of Web2 users and companies. They must leverage Web3 in novel ways to solve real world problems better than Web2 tech is able to. The Foundation will not be focused on specific verticals, and instead be relatively opportunistic in terms of use case (at least in the first few cohorts). DeFi and Gaming verticals would be excluded from the accelerator purview.

The Foundation is focused on pre-seed and seed stage teams. We expect that teams selected for a NEAR sponsored cohort will build on NEAR and leverage NEAR Discovery. More information on NEAR Discovery here. 

In your response, please detail the following:

  1. Web3 accelerator program scope 

As NEAR Foundation aims to attract the best teams, we want our accelerator partner to provide a top class experience and focus on the main challenges that Web3 startups face nowadays, including but not limited to: go-to-market, token economy and launches, fundraising and pitching, marketing and comms, governance, legal, etc. This will be supplemented by the support of experts within the NEAR ecosystem. 

In your response, please detail the following:

  1. Track record of success

NEAR Foundation seeks accelerator partners that have a strong track record of success. In your response, please detail the following:

  1. Attractive deal terms

One of the most important factors in attracting high quality founders to the accelerator will be the quality of the investment terms. 

In your response, please detail the following:

  1. Cost & investment

NEAR Foundation is open to various proposals in terms of costs and investments. Where we land will largely depend on the proposed value to NEAR and its ecosystem. 

For NEAR specific cohorts, the Foundation’s goal is for both NEAR and the Accelerator Partner to share operational cost and investment opportunity. 

For chain agnostic cohorts, we would be willing to provide direct technical and non-technical support from the NEAR Foundation Accelerator’s team for startups who choose NEAR as their Layer 1. 

In your response, please detail the following:

  1. Broader NEAR ecosystem support

NEAR Foundation would like its ecosystem of startups to leverage the partner capabilities even though they are not actively participating in the accelerator (e.g., share ready-made class material, leverage investor network, connections to enterprise, etc.).

In your response, please detail the following:

Digital Product Beta Participation Requirements

In 2023, Pagoda, NEAR Foundation and other key ecosystem participants are increasing the integration and seamless experience for developers and end users into one common operating system that will leverage fast onboarding experience, user profiles, new chat/ social capabilities, and more. As part of this platform, the Foundation is building a founder-focused application that will be the place for both NEAR-native and non-NEAR-native projects to be discovered, find contributors and investors, and grow towards their goals. We would like to invite accelerator partners in as beta customers and builders for this application.

If your organization is both an investment team and an accelerator:

If your organization is solely an accelerator:

In your response, please detail the following:

NEAR Foundation Commitments

NEAR Foundation is committed to complement the partner’s current programs with ecosystem support (technical and non-technical). 

Selection criteria and timelines

NEAR Foundation will be assessing proposals based on the previously mentioned requirements. Acceleration partners are expected to submit their proposals by February 17, 2023 via Google Form. The NEAR Foundation review team will be conducting interviews with selected candidates between February 13-24. The review team will shortlist the partners between February 27-28 and will communicate further with the selected parties. Final approval will be provided by the NEAR Foundation Counsel. 

Legal Disclosure: 

Participation in our accelerator partners program is subject to the following terms and conditions: (1) Confidentiality: Participants will be required to keep all information and materials shared by the program confidential, unless otherwise agreed to in writing or as required by law. (2) Intellectual Property: All intellectual property created or developed by a participant during the program will remain the property of the participant, unless otherwise agreed to in writing by the participant. (3) Disclaimer of Liability: The program will not be liable for any damages arising out of or in connection with the program or the participation of any participant. (4) Governing Law: These terms and conditions will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Switzerland. By participating in the program, participants agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.

NEAR Foundation hopes all of you are having a great start to the year. Here are some of the top news stories from the NEAR Foundation and our thriving ecosystem, as well as press headlines from around the globe.

Calimero raises $8.5 million in funding

In an exclusive with The Block, London-based startup Calimero announced an $8.5 million funding round co-led by NEAR Foundation to bring private sharding to NEAR. Calimero’s founders, ex-NEAR engineers Sandi Fatic and Mario Halambek, are building the “AWS for private sharding” and currently have their platform in alpha testing. The story has been covered across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is creating a lot of excitement throughout the NEAR ecosystem.

SailGP opens fan-owned team for investment

Another big story that hit the press was the first fan-owned SailGP team opening for investment.  As reported in Decrypt, the team was created by a modified community DAO on NEAR protocol, giving sailing fans the opportunity to run and invest in a team in their sport. The offer will close after $35 million in funding is raised and the team will debut in June 2023.

Sheila Warren partners with Forkast News

Sheila Warren, Advisor to the Crypto Council and NEAR Foundation, partnered with Forkast News to plot the course for Web3 in 2023. She identified regulatory decisions as a key area for the year ahead, with lots of activity expected in the US congress and India leading efforts in the G20. Sheila also identified Asia, and specifically ASEAN, as the region to watch for blockchain adoption and regulatory progress.

NEAR’s global press coverage

NEAR Foundation enjoyed coverage across every region in January, with 76 media mentions globally. One story covered extensively was Marieke Flament’s hopes for 2023 with Forkast News, predicting that the ongoing Twitter debacle has warranted an overhaul of the social media status-quo. Users are searching for platforms that are unbiased in their censoring of content and more transparent in their operations, presenting a key use case for blockchains. Marieke also outlined the need for continued improvements in diversity across the Web3 space to create a better working environment for everyone and improve decision making.

Towards the end of January, we partnered with CoinDesk to take a look at the impending crypto winter and how the NEAR ecosystem will fare. The Web3 industry is in for a tough 12 months due to a contraction in user engagement and a scaling back of venture capital. However, NEAR is primed to thrive in the year ahead — with major new infrastructure, including NEAR Social and NEAR Crowd, real world value on the NEAR protocol is set to take off. The Foundation continues to support our bustling ecosystem, and the development community is only growing stronger through the community DAOs.

Finally, Marieke Flament wrote about our recent Forbes post about the importance of servant leadership in the world of tech. Forget ego — this never bodes well in the long term.  

Leaders must do their jobs “for the broader impact they can go on to have,” said Flament. “There are many ‘fake servant leaders’ who pretend they are doing it for the benefit of others but are all too often caught by their own deception and greed, leading to a loss of confidence in authority that runs deep and has a lasting impact on the way people feel about work.” 

That’s all for this month. If we missed anything out or want to share anything for next month’s roundup, get in touch!

Wallet security can be intimidating, especially for newcomers. But it just got a whole lot easier for NEAR users. NEAR Foundation is excited to announce full integration with Ledger Live, making it easier than ever for NEAR holders to secure their assets using Ledger’s devices and software. 

Ledger Live is Ledger’s all-in-one digital asset management app enabling its users to manage and stake an ever-growing range of digital assets from the security and self-custody of their hardware wallets. Through its single, secure app, anyone from newcomers to crypto natives can follow the market,manage their DeFi portfolio, and explore Web3 with complete control and freedom. 

“We are thrilled to help more people enjoy the benefits of self-custody, no matter what their level of crypto experience,” said Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation. “This new partnership will bring even easier and more secure access to cryptocurrency worldwide, as we remain committed to serving as the de facto entry point to Web3 – simplifying the onboarding experience for users even if they have never used crypto, tokens, keys, or wallets.”

Carl Anderson, VP B2C Engineering at Ledger, adds: “I’m pleased to see a crypto player like NEAR join the Ledger ecosystem. This integration highlights what Ledger Live really is: an all-in-one asset management app where users can manage their digital assets, visualize their NFTs, and explore an ever-growing range of Web3 apps from the security of their hardware wallets.”

How Ledger Live works

To use Ledger Live, users must have a Ledger hardware wallet and then download the desktop and/or mobile app. This all-in-one digital asset management app allows users to track, buy, sell and swap an ever-growing range of tokens, visualize NFTs, earn rewards, manage NFT collections, and securely stake their digital assets with Ledger by Figment validator while enjoying the benefits of self-custody. 

Users can delegate their NEAR tokens to the Ledger by Figment validator, contributing to the protocol’s security while benefiting from coverage against slashing risks, low commission fees, and earning rewards from that contribution. 

Visit the Ledger Live webpage for more details on using the app and staking with the Ledger by Figment validator. 

DISCLOSURE NOTICE: Investment in cryptocurrency and other digital assets is highly speculative and comes with significant risks. The value of these assets can be highly volatile and may fluctuate significantly in a short period of time. It is important to conduct thorough research and consult with a financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Additionally, it is important to understand the regulatory environment and potential legal implications of investing in cryptocurrency. This disclosure is not a recommendation to buy or sell any particular asset and is for informational purposes only.

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