The world has begun to view the cryptocurrency space as more trustworthy than the fiat system, which is frequently unable to weather a recession or a pandemic, at the very least. This concern has led to the growing number of people who adopt cryptocurrency or indicate interest in learning about it. In some countries, crypto has proven to be the bailout for their citizens who now make a living either by playing crypto-based games or the popular NFTs.
Near Raises the Bar
Popular cryptocurrencies leading the space include Bitcoin, Etherum, and, more recently, Near Protocol, which recently shared a piece of exciting news with its community members. Several blockchains like the Fantom, Harmony, Avalanche, and Celo have been on an expansion spree and introduced nine-figure development funds for their ecosystem; Near has disrupted the industry and set a new standard with the announcement of an $800 million grants fund.
NEAR Protocol, a decentralized application platform aimed to make web-based applications viable, has revealed the launch of its $800 million investment drive to promote the protocol’s ecosystem expansion. The funds have been outlined to be spent for specific purposes that would grow the community.
The fund was established with major tranches earmarked for specific purposes such as Decentralized Finance (DeFi), Startup Grant Pools, assisting existing projects to further develop and scale-up, and regional funds.
How the Funds Would be Shared
According to reports, decentralized finance (DeFi) appears to be a priority of the program, occupying 43.75% of the total funds, with a $350 million fund dedicated by Proximity Labs. Furthermore, a total of $250 million is set aside for ecosystem grants, which will aid in the development and scaling of existing programs. This will be spread out over four years and will account for 31.25 per cent of the entire fund amount.
The final $200 million is divided evenly among startup grant pools and regional programs. These two together account for 25% of the total. In terms of its plans for regional grants, over 20 startups will be recognized and granted $5 million in financing to disperse important stakeholders. As per the distribution to these startups, the ecosystem will ultimately determine who receives money. The development funds will be used to encourage and strengthen the development of NEAR’s largest community regions in Asia, Europe, and the United States.
Actively Expanding
Following the token sales from high-profile investors such as Andreessen Horowitz and Pantera Capital, Near launched in 2020 and, since then, has been expanding its community. According to its co-founder, Illia Polosukhin, the platform has been active this year and has about $45 million in funds already distributed to over 120 projects, including Core Protocol Infrastructure Grants to Textile, Liquality, CronCat, Kurtosis, and the Grain Programming Language.
Speaking of their activities, he said, “A lot of the projects so far have been infrastructure. Croncat allows the ability to send transactions at different times, Cartosis is testing smart contracts – so supporting new programming languages, supporting storage, so a lot of it was, ‘What are the building blocks we need to unlock exponential composability?”
More expansion plans are to be expected from the platform in the coming days.
