For the 2023 edition of ETHDenver, the Near ecosystem offered a number of bounties across a range of Web3 verticals, including DeFi, Content, Search, Social Media, Interoperability, Smart Contract History, and more. There were 3 main prize pools from Aurora, Proximity, and Developer Governance (DevGov). 

Congratulations to all Near winners. who received over 30k in USDC! Let’s have a look at the winning projects of the Near at ETHDenver bounties. 

Aurora Bounty Winners

Open Aurora Bounty

Winner – StakingPool Aurora

Implements a liquid staking protocol around Aurora Plus staking. Users will deposit AURORA and receive a share in $stAUR tokens, which distributes the APY rewards. $stAUR could be immediately converted with a fee or wait for a delayed unstake.

Runner Up – Geni

AI-powered specifications generator of security tests for smart contracts.

Runner Up – Demeter

A lending platform that offers yield advancements, i.e., self-paying loans. Borrowers’ collateral is invested in RWA protocols, and the yield pays off debt.

Proximity Bounty Winners

Deploy a Decentralized Frontend Component

Winner – BosWrap 

BosWrap used the Near Blockchain Operating System to build a decentralized widget for wrapping/unwrapping ETH.

Runner Up – ABI BOS Widget 

A solidity explorer widget that allow users to explore any smart contract for a given ABI. You can get ABI from Etherscan website.

Runner Up – Bossed Up

A project focusing on Ethereum frontends, Blockchain Operating System improvements, and NEAR Social widgets that interact with NEAR contracts.

Runner Up – Atmosph3re

A dApp for reducing the homeless crisis in the United States by giving those living on the streets a decentralized identity, mentoring and community support, and funds for spending on their basic needs to help them thrive. 

Runner Up – EthDenver2023UWCA

A dApp on NeaR’s new frontend with BOS.GG. Integrates with Rocketpool to offer quick swaps on Ethereum.

DevGov Bounty Winners

Extensive Developer Profile Widget

Winner – Developer Profile

A recreation of Github profile for NEAR social developers in the Blockchain Operating System. 

Fuzzy Search Widget / Promoted Posts Banner Widget / Top Posts Widget  / Post History with Diff Widget

Winner – Near.Social DevGovGigs Improvements 

A new Developer Governance Gigs interaction experience for Near.Social. Features: 1) Fuzzy Searching that can handle typos, 2) Promote posts and Promoted Post viewer, 3) Hottest Posts viewer, and 4), Post editing history viewer.

Near.Social Bots Coded in Javascript

Winner – JS Bot Widget

Verifiable RPC Replies

Winner – Near Verifiable RPC Endpoints for Viewing Access Keys

Adds proof generation support to RPC read access key endpoints on the NEAR protocol to help pave the road for light client support. 

Missed Near Day and ETHDenver 2023? We’ve got you covered with content from Near talks and panels. There were also a number of awesome announcements, including the big news out of ETHDenver — the Blockchain Operating System.

Let’s take a look at all that was Near at ETHDenver. 

Near Day talks

Near co-founder and Pagoda CEO Illia Polosukhin unveiling the Blockchain Operating System.

Near Day, the 1-day mini summit on all things Near, was jam-packed with the latest technological and protocol updates. Chief among them was the announcement of the Blockchain Operating System.

Things got started with a Regenerative Finance (ReFI) talk from Open Forest Protocol’s Frederic Fournier and Flow Carbon’s Phil Fogel. Later in the morning programme, OnMachina’s Polina Aladina and Mark Collier talked about building decentralized storage on Near. As a vital Near ecosystem project, it was great for the ETHDenver crowd to hear from OnMachina on Web3 storage. 

OnMachina’s Mark Collier talking decentralized storage on Near.

Keypom, which also recently launched on Near, got some much needed visibility at Near Day. In “Instant Crypto Experiences with Keypom”,  Ben Kurrek and Matt Lockyer took the audience on a tour of their Web3 onboarding solution, in which 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. (Read more about Keypom here.)

The morning programme also featured talks from Calimero Network’s Sandi Fatic on privacy and scaling with private sharding; Aurora Labs’ Alex Shevchenko on Containers, Aurora’s cloud computing solution for blockchains; Sweat Economy’s Oleg Fomenko on how to effectively onboard people from Web2 to Web3; and Near co-founder Alex Skidanov on how the future of AI will be decentralized. 

In the afternoon, there were a range of talks, starting with Pagoda’s Max Zavershynskyi presentation on creating “high velocity developer communities” via Near DevGov DAO. But the big news on Near Day was the Blockchain Operating System talk from Near co-founder Illia Polosukhin. After Illia primed the audience, Pagoda’s Chief Product Officer Alex Chiocchi elaborated on how Blockchain Operating System will help in onboarding millions of users to Near, while Pagoda’s Bowen Wang detailed the protocol innovations powering the Blockchain Operating System. 

Marieke Flament on the ETHDenver main stage for the ‘Crypto Winter, Bullish Builders’ panel.

Near Foundation CEO Marieke Flament and Dragonfly Capital’s Haseeb Qureshi also talked about why the future remains bright for Web3 even during the crypto winter. There were also talks from Pagoda’s Pavel Kudinov on the Near data stack and Josh Ford on a fully decentralized Javascript. 

Other topics included the building of infrastructure to onboard 1 billion users on Near, NFT infrastructure, a “DeFi survival kit” for the bear market, and the regulatory landscape in Web3.

Near speakers at ETHDenver 

Pagoda’s Bowen Wang discussing Near’s vision for Layer 1 infrastructure.

A number of speakers represented the Near ecosystem at ETHDenver talks. Topics included the Blockchain Operating System, sustainability, UX design, and more. 

Aurora Labs’ Alex Shevchenko kicked things off with a presentation on Web3 infrastructure and scalability — specifically, how not to hack everything up in creating bridges. Alex also gave another talk on next generation user experience. Near Foundation CEO Marieke Flament delivered a talk on the three pillars of Web3 sustainability, while Proximity Labs’ Kendall Cole explored how Web3 can win in the DeFi battle against app stores. 

Aurora Labs CEO Alex Shevchenko delivering a talk at ETHDenver.

In separate talks, Illia Polosukhin and Pagoda’s Bowen Wang spoke to the ETHDenver audience about the Blockchain Operating System. While Bowen mapped out Near’s vision for Layer 1 Infrastructure, Illia talked about reinventing Web3 development with decentralized frontends and social networking. 

Near Announcements

While the Near is the Blockchain Operating System announcement was the talk of ETHDenver, there were plenty of other announcements. Find the full run-down of Near ecosystem announcements here.

In other news, the Near ecosystem had two wins at ETHVC’s Startup Demo Day during ETHDenver — Niche Protocol, a Web3 social media platform, and Kino, a film financing platform.  

Near will see a number of partnership and project announcements at Near Day and ETHDenver. Over a 1,000 people are attending Near Day, with many more visiting the Near booth and dropping in on ETHDenver talks and panels featuring Near ecosystem figures. Beyond the many engaging talks and projects demos, there was also an ecosystem party, side events, a hackathon, and much more. 

Let’s take a quick look at a few of the latest announcements from Near at ETHDenver. 

A number of other announcements will be rolling out over the course of Near Day and ETHDenver, so stay tuned for those below in the coming days.

Few and Far raises $10.5 million in funding

Few and Far, a leading Digital Collectibles web3 platform, announced today that it has raised $10.5 million in a funding round led by Pantera Capital, the leading blockchain investment firm.The raise marks a significant milestone for Few and Far, which has been experiencing exponential growth since launch. 

The new funds will help expand the platform’s capabilities, enhance user experience, and increase the number of Web3 developers. IP owners also stand to benefit from the platform. Few and Far features an all-inclusive platform available to carry out everything related to next generation digital collectibles, including a suite of developer tools. 

The round also included top VCs, Cypher Capital, Huobi Ventures, Hypersphere, Metaweb, Mantis Partners, K5 Global and many more. 

Near Blockchain Operating System now live on Alpha.Near.Org

Read the full Near Blockchain Operating System announcement here

For Near Day on March 2nd, Near launched alpha.nearpages.wpengine.com — a composable frontend for Web3. It will allow end users to easily and frictionlessly discover all of Web3’s possibilities in one seamless experience. It will also empower developers to create and code interfaces in a single environment with the ability to fork a host of components to build apps faster and more efficiently than ever before.

Anyone in the Open Web ecosystem can create their own frontends (i.e., their own versions of alpha.nearpages.wpengine.com), compatible with the blockchain of their choice. This means that builders from any ecosystem can create components in just a few lines of code, and take advantage of fast onboarding to help make new and custom Web3 experiences.

This is an industry first. With the addition of composable frontends to the tech stack, Near now becomes the Blockchain Operating System, allowing seamless, one-time onboarding and removing friction points like making accounts for every experience, while supercharging development from a collection of over 1,800 components. 

Alpha.nearpages.wpengine.com is the first step in Near’s Blockchain Operating System journey. It’s the Alpha version, where builders can see the frontend come to life. 

Try out the Alpha at alpha.nearpages.wpengine.com to experience the world’s first Blockchain Operating System — a revolutionary moment in Web3. If you’re a developer, see how easy it is to fork components and create new experiences. If you’re an end user, see how easy it is to explore Web3 experiences, social, and news all in one place. 

The Blockchain Operating System is Near and it’s here. #NearistheBOS

Flow Carbon announces carbon-market ecosystem built on Near

Near and Flowcarbon, the pioneering climate technology company, announced the launch of a carbon-market ecosystem that will enable carbon credits to be traded on the Near network through Flowcarbon’s tokenized carbon credits. With this collaboration, Near will realize its vision of becoming a carbon-negative blockchain. As part of this partnership, Near plans to offset its carbon footprint through Flowcarbon.

Flow Carbon’s carbon credit token will be launched on both Near and Aurora, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) built on Near. Validators will be set up for the purpose of offsetting, and large Near holders will be able to stake with these validators.

Designed to make carbon offsetting more accessible and transparent, this partnership will help Near become carbon-negative, solidifying Near’s position as one of the top players in Regenerative Finance (ReFi). 

With Stacksports, parents and athletes can mint royalty-free NFTs

StackNFT is teaming up with Near to offer an NFT platform that allows youth athletes of all ages and skill levels to create and capture their favorite sports memories digitally. 

Youth sports parents and athletes can now mint royalty-free NFTs effortlessly, without any advanced knowledge of the minting or wallet creation process. Just upload, decorate, and mint. Parents and athletes can also mint NFTs knowing that Near is a carbon-neutral, environmentally friendly blockchain, which supports several forest protection and restoration projects.

StackNFT is owned and operated by Stack Sports, a global technology leader in SaaS platform offerings for the sports industry, with nearly 50 million users in 35 countries. From little league to the pros, Stack Sports powers the many moments that create the story of your journey through sports.

Calimero’s private shard infrastructure now live on Near

Calimero.network, a secure private shard infrastructure provider announced that after several months running in a stealth mode, during which it was tested by beta testers and partners, is ready to serve customers with unique blockchain power and a Web2 interface.

With roots in the Near Protocol, Calimero is a high performance blockchain that launched on mainnet in 2020. Founded by Sandi Fatic and Mario Halambek, two of the first infrastructure engineers at Near, Calimero allows projects to launch their own shard in a matter of minutes. In launching a private shard, users can be certain of the network’s performance and security, which is managed by Calimero itself.

Calimero is targeting so-called “Web2.5”, seeking a way to connect Web3 and Web2 worlds. For Web3 startups, Calimero provides a unique way to scale their products and leverage the privacy features, giving access to target Enterprise customers and getting access to new audiences. For classic Enterprises, Calimero offers a way to build new products and onboard chosen Web3 mechanics to find new areas to grow their businesses with growth rates compared to DeFi and NFT markets.

With the cheapest option starting from less than $300, Calimero provides a flexible model to maximize the cost efficiency by adjusting shard performance according to the load. Calimero also offers a 14-day grace period to test out the platform for startups who are in the very beginning of their journey. 

Calimero.network is a London-based startup that has recently raised an investment round of $8.5M, co-led by Khosla Ventures, Lyrik Ventures, and Near foundation. 

Near Foundation Council updates

Near Foundation announced that Mona El Isa, a founding council member at Near Foundation Council (NFC), has been appointed as Chair.  Marieke Flament, CEO of Near Foundation, has joined as a council member, and will govern alongside existing members Richard Muirhead, Chairman and Managing Partner at Fabric Ventures, and Jason Warner, Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures as well as Sheila Warren advisor to Near Foundation and  CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation. 

Mona takes the place of Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of Near Protocol and CEO of Pagoda (formerly Near Inc.), who has stepped down as Chair and member of the  Near Foundation Council (NFC) to focus on Web3 ecosystem development and participation.  

“It was an honor to serve as Chair and Council Member of the NEAR Foundation Council over the past two years,” said Illia Polosukhin. “I’m stepping down in order to focus fully on the development of products and technology at Pagoda, which is critical to the continuing success of the NEAR Ecosystem.”

“I will continue to be involved with NFC in my capacity as Pagoda CEO,” he added. “From a governance perspective, my departure increases the council’s independence and further decentralizes leadership and decision-making in the NEAR Ecosystem. I welcome Mona’s appointment as the new Chair and Marieke’s as council member to continue steering the Foundation in its mission of supporting NEAR’s growth.”

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