The Q2 edition of the Transparency report features a NEAR Foundation Treasury report and a variety of exciting updates on the recently announced Blockchain Operating System (BOS), the NEAR ecosystem’s thriving projects, and NEAR Foundation’s Web2.5 strategy. You’ll also get the latest on NEAR Horizon Accelerator, NDC, NEAR’s Web2 → Web3 partnerships, and more. 

NEAR Foundation Treasury Update 

At the end of Q2 2023, NEAR Foundation’s treasury totaled $0.9b, which included $349M fiat reserves, 315M NEAR ($435M at a closing price of $1.38) and $90M in Loans and Investments. Total treasury holdings declined $0.2B in the quarter, led by a fall in the price of NEAR to $1.38 from $1.99. Net $16M fiat and 1m NEAR was deployed in Q2.

The NEAR Foundation has continued to adopt a highly responsible approach to treasury management in order to minimize the risk of loss in a turbulent market, while continuing capital deployment to fulfill its mission. Exposure to non-NEAR assets therefore has been limited, with fiat reserves held in highly rated Swiss bank accounts. 

NEAR Foundation continues to maintain sufficient resources and runway to thrive in a multi-year market downturn, deploying capital in a targeted and responsible manner to help the NEAR ecosystem thrive and remain vibrant. As a result, the NEAR Foundation is in an extremely strong position to continue to support the ongoing growth and development of the NEAR Protocol and ecosystem.

A recap of NEAR’s go-forward strategy 

Since the Q1 transparency report, the industry has faced some significant headwinds, such as the SEC action against Binance and Coinbase. (You can see our response to the SEC action here.) Amidst a turbulent market, the NEAR Foundation’s vision and mission remain the same: we believe in building a better web — the open web — and our mission is to foster the adoption of the open web by supporting the self-sustainable growth of a decentralized NEAR ecosystem.

As mentioned in the Q1 transparency report, to effectively move closer towards our collective vision, the NEAR Foundation has focused on 3 core strategies:

1. NEAR is the Blockchain Operating System (BOS): the open web is only possible with an open operating system, which only NEAR can deliver.
2. NEAR is a thriving, decentralized ecosystem: the open web will lead to a safer, fairer, and censorship-resistant digital world.
3. NEAR is where Web2 goes to become Web3: the open web will be the next generation of the internet, and will only reach mainstream if users from Web2 are migrated from Web3.

To achieve these strategies, NEAR Foundation is focused on two different approaches to bringing more users to NEAR. It begins with NEAR Foundation’s top-down approach to partnerships led by a world-class business development team. By working with major applications and brands with substantial, established communities, NEAR Foundation is partnering on real use cases that drive engagement on the BOS. High-traction use-cases for partnerships have primarily been around loyalty — especially across sports, gaming and retail. 

Q2 saw a flurry of high profile announcements, including MarbleX, Shemaroo, Alibaba Cloud, Cosmose, and Skoda. There has also been a focus on bringing projects from other Web3 ecosystems onto the BOS, and many are leveraging the decentralized frontend component of BOS, including brands like Galxe.

Q2 has also seen NEAR Foundation’s bottom-up, grassroots approach continue in full swing. Decentralization is a core principle of the Foundation —  it is key to the success of NEAR, as it creates a more fair and inclusive ecosystem for devs and end users alike, and continues to empower more activity in the wider community. The Foundation has supported the successful transition of the Marketing & Creatives DAO into the NDC, becoming fully autonomous entities funded by the NDC itself. The Foundation has also been supporting the NDC to be fully autonomous with its own treasury, and to take control of key community ceremonies like the Town Hall and Ecosystem Roundtable. NEAR Horizon is also a key part of the bottom-up approach, providing projects with much needed acceleration support. This quarter, Horizon launched with a bang at Consensus, and has started supporting its first batch of projects. NEAR Horizon has partnered with some top backers and service providers to ensure projects have the right resources to grow.

Although not directly responsible for it, NEAR Foundation believes the overall development of the Blockchain Operating System itself — a common layer for discovering and creating open web experiences, across all blockchains — is key to enabling the ecosystem to thrive. The BOS is built on top of NEAR’s scalable, cost-effective, sustainable Layer 1. The layer 1 itself also has an ambitious roadmap to continue its groundbreaking development.

The Foundation has been working closely with Pagoda and DevHub to ensure that the BOS supports the entire ecosystem and puts the builder at the heart of everything it does.

Q2 Ecosystem OKR performance 

Throughout Q2, the ecosystem has experienced several areas of growth towards its OKRs. While the ecosystem met many of its goals, there is always work to be done. 

Our north star metric, Monthly Active Accounts, was at 1.1M at the end of Q2, 100k shy of the 1.2M target. We’ve seen continued strong traction from SWEAT, who are still the largest partner on NEAR in terms of MAA. The slight miss to the goal can mainly be attributed to longer than anticipated lead times in partnerships going from announcement to mainnet.

The TL;DR on ecosystem OKR performance this quarter (see below for more detailed analysis): 

• NEAR is the BOS
  • Successful launch and migration of near.org on to the BOS — this was done at Consensus with a huge activation. 
  • Sustained growth in the NEARProtocol Twitter following, hitting 1.9M followers — slightly short of the 2.2M target.
  • A 3X increase in our Share of Voice to 15%, a huge uplift versus the target, driven primarily by the BOS launch and key partnership announcements.
  • 16,000 active accounts on near.org since its launch in April.
• NEAR is a thriving decentralized ecosystem
  • Marketing & Creatives DAO now fully transitioned to the NDC.
  • NDC v1 Governance is about to be rolled out after hitting its key milestone of over 1,000 humans now participating.
  • NPS in the community remains around 30, despite a target to grow to 40. 
  • NEAR Horizon launched successfully its MVP with over 110 projects now on the platform
  • External capital raising for projects on NEAR remains a challenge, driven mainly by the current climate. 
• NEAR is where web2 comes to become web3
  • 42 new strategic partners have been signed in Q2, including the announcement of 7 flagship deals and over 15 tier 2 deals. The challenge here remains the lag between announcement and launch on mainnet. 

OKR1: NEAR is the BOS 

NEAR’s Blockchain Operating System is key to the creation and maintenance of a thriving ecosystem. A common layer for creating and discovering open web experiences, the BOS is designed to be used across all blockchains — all in one browser. In this way, the entire open web can become integrated and truly composable on a global level. 

The BOS is an operating system designed specifically for the open web — built atop the layer 1 NEAR Protocol. Usable by any blockchain or dApp, the BOS allows the effortless creation and distribution of innovative decentralized apps across any blockchain. On the BOS, developers can build quickly using existing components in languages they already know, like Javascript, as well as leverage its social network to find, connect, and build communities on NEAR and beyond.

The NEAR Protocol itself, the Layer 1, is a core part of the BOS tech stack and continues to be developed as the scalable, cost-effective, and simple backend to any Web3 tech stack.
After a strong soft launch for the BOS at ETHDenver, in Q2 we saw the BOS launch fully at Consensus,  transforming near.org into a full BOS gateway — meaning that the entire site is now on chain, utilizing the full benefit of the BOS tech stack. The launch was incredibly well received, seeing a solid amount of coverage across media outlets such as Bloomberg, CoinMarketCap and Coindesk, as well as a strong increase in SOV across social platforms. 

Near.org now has over 6,800 components from around 100 active developers, along with over 12,000 accounts. What this means is that NEAR now has over 1% of existing community members on the near.org gateway, and we continue to see members of the ecosystem onboarding to BOS, contributing and using applications. Aside from near.org component builders, from the latest Electric Capital report, there are over 500 active developers within the NEAR ecosystem.

The NEAR DevHub continues to make progress evolving how developers interact with the BOS, through the launch of bounties, and support across ETHGlobal hackathon events such as ETHPrague and ETHWaterloo. NEAR DevHub is a decentralized community platform, built on the BOS, for NEAR developers to contribute to the ecosystem and stay informed about the latest news. It enables anyone to share ideas, match solutions, and access technical support and funding.

NEAR Foundation also announced NEARCON 2023, which is set to return to Lisbon this November, the planning of which is already building on last year’s huge success. The nearcon.org site is now live, marking the first fully decentralized event site built on the BOS. Nearcon.org makes it possible to  buy your tickets in NEAR or Fiat, and see all the upcoming information for this year’s event.

Although the NEARProtocol handle will come close to 2.2M followers in Q2, there has been a conscious strategy to slow down this acquisition to focus more on engagement based activity beyond just Twitter. Our conviction — based on data analytics — is that we now have a large % of high quality, relevant followers who can keep up-to-date with NEAR news and the ecosystem.

The NEARProtocol Twitter handle also saw a huge uplift in Share of Voice, achieving over 15% in June — a key metric for measuring awareness and engagement of NEAR in relation to our competitor set. This measure takes the top 1,000 influencers in Web3 and measures how many times NEAR is mentioned versus other Web3 ecosystems. This has been primarily driven by the BOS narrative itself, but also from some of the high profile partnership announcements and events.

OKR2: NEAR is a thriving decentralized Ecosystem 

NEAR Foundation continues to make great progress in its mandate to support the decentralization of the NEAR ecosystem since the last transparency report. The NEAR Foundation remains deeply committed to supporting the decentralization of the NEAR ecosystem. By decentralizing, NEAR ensures that power lies with the community upon which the vibrant ecosystem thrives, and gives the worldwide community a voice in the future of blockchain and Web3. 

NEAR Digital Collective (NDC)

Since the last transparency report the NDC, along with support from the Foundation, has made excellent progress with the NDC being open to funding requests, the launch of “I Am Human” for voting integrity, and purpose trusts set up for Marketing and Creatives DAOs, which will allow for greater autonomy of the DAO community. We talk about these initiatives in more detail below.

The NDC — the largest decentralization project in the NEAR ecosystem to date — is bringing together users, developers, and creators throughout the ecosystem with its innovative framework of governance. By developing this framework, it allows any member of the network to have a say in how NEAR is run by combining transparency, collective decision making, evolving governance models, and self-determination in a completely new way. 

As part of its V1 Governance and in a partnership with Fractal, the NDC launched the I Am Human initiative, a “proof-of-personhood” where participants can get verified through a quick and simple process and mint a “Soul Bound Token”. This will facilitate integrity and fairness of the on-chain voting system, ensuring that each person can only vote once. By mid-June, the I Am Human Protocol verified over  1,000 people — a remarkable achievement for the NDC and decentralization. 

In Q1, the NDC launched the Community Treasury with a budget of 5.7 million NEAR to support the development of the NEAR ecosystem. Following this launch, the Governance Working Group (GWG) and Legal Working Group (LWG) worked together on a set of terms and conditions to foster transparency and accountability of contributors requesting funding from the NDC. The process is now live. 

The NEAR Community Treasury wallet is viewable here.

Moving forward, the NDC will focus on increasing engagement and creating an even bigger impact on the community. It currently has a “Run for Office” call for contributors who want to participate in its governance and leadership. This is a great opportunity for motivated individuals to help build the open web we all believe in. 

The NEAR Foundation is working with the GWG (Governance Working Group) and LWG (Legal Working Group) to provide educational tools to members of the community who are thinking of building (or scaling their existing projects) on the NEAR protocol. Keep an eye out for announcements!

In the meantime, to learn more about the NDC and to participate in the projects and discussions, please see here. 

Grassroots DAO funding activity

The three core grassroots DAOs remain the key source of funding for anyone looking to build in the NEAR ecosystem. Confirming the NEAR Foundation efforts to decentralize operations and promote autonomy of the ecosystem, CreativesDAO now has set up its own community treasury via a Guernsey purpose trust similar to the NDC, and started allocating funding again. The DAO is now able to request funding directly to the NDC, making the process community-owned in its entirety.  

Marketing DAO followed suit and its community treasury has recently been set up. Find more details in the announcement here. In addition to the trust, the MarketingDAO Charter has now been published, outlining its governance rules. 

DevHub has also started the process of establishing its community treasury and we will have more developments in the near future. In the meantime, NEAR Foundation and DevHub worked together on automated flow for funding requests which greatly reduced completion time.

NEAR Foundation recognises the exceptional work of the NDC and core DAOs. The Foundation will continue to support decentralization initiatives and the growth and development of the NEAR community.

NEAR Horizon  

NEAR Horizon is an early stage accelerator, coordinated by the NEAR Foundation, that’s revolutionizing how founders and builders find support in Web3. The mission of NEAR Horizon is to attract high-quality founders to build on NEAR and support their growth by facilitating connections with the right resources all in one place. The NEAR Horizon strategy consists of three main components: the Horizon dApp, partnerships, and easily accessible content resources.

Horizon dApp

Horizon has seen significant growth since launching April 26th, 2023. Over 160 projects and 30 contributors have produced 1,000+ transactions. The newly added service providers (sourced from the initial RFP in Q1) all bring a unique blend of talent, expertise, and innovative solutions, contributing to the diverse and vibrant ecosystem of NEAR Horizon. 
Another exciting feature of Horizon is the Learn section. Founders at all stages can take advantage of a curated list of resources to best help where they need it the most, such as: Business Fundamentals, Growth and Marketing, Recruiting and Legal, and Technical areas.

Horizon Partnerships

For founders looking for additional support and guidance throughout their Horizon journey, the platform will also be equipped with programs facilitated through a NEAR Foundation partner, providing mentorship, business resources, and a direct line to startup capital. 

These programs are available through a wide range of industry leading groups including Antler, Brinc, FabricX, CV Labs, Blockchain Founders Group, Decasonic and Dragonfly amongst others. Regardless of the path founders choose to take, NEAR Horizon will provide them with the support they need when they need it most to accelerate the growth of their Web3 projects built on NEAR.

Our educational program partners design hackathons, fellowships, and educational content for students, early-career engineers, and current founders. We are excited to be partnered with Encode Club and Major League Hacking, who have both kicked off their various initiatives with NEAR Horizon in Q2. 

In addition to working with a few chain-agnostic acceleration programs with a goal of bringing new projects to the growing NEAR ecosystem, we’ve also partnered with Outlier Ventures and Startup Wiseguys to facilitate a NEAR-specific acceleration program. The first Outlier Ventures cohort is set to kick off in July, and we look forward to bringing an update to the Q3 report. 

We are also partnering with Web3 communities, DAOs, and incubators to provide workshops and resources to current and aspiring founders such as the NYC demo day in partnership with Banyan Collective, and another exciting Grants Demo Day hosted by Mintbase at the end of June. 

Horizon was proud to host Pitch and Networking events at both Consensus and Collision, including fantastic speakers from Decasonic, Fabric, Press Start Capital and others. Over 100 projects applied to pitch and more than 500 people registered to attend and network. 
The NEAR Horizon team is continuing to expand our community through founder experiences, engaging over 100 founders to-date. The Horizon team hosts weekly office hours, AMAs with service providers, and product demo days for founders to source live feedback on their products. To stay current on all the activities of NEAR Horizon follow us on NEAR.social @nearhorizon.near or on twitter.

OKR3: Web2 → Web3 

The NEAR Foundation BD team exceeded its goal in H1 2023 by bringing 74 partners to the NEAR blockchain versus a goal of 27. The 48 partnerships closed in Q2 also marked a significant increase from the 26 in Q1. The majority of these partners were considering other chains yet chose NEAR due to its focus on bridging Web2 with Web3, usability, conservative approach, and strong partner support.

In Q1 and Q2, BD had a targeted approach to focus on five main areas that we believe are uniquely unlocked by Web3: loyalty & rewards, social and the creator economy, gaming and the metaverse, sustainability, and infrastructure. The NEAR Foundation continues to partner with startups, as well as enterprises and governments. 16 of the 74 closed partnerships were with enterprises or governments. 

Loyalty and rewards: Loyalty  is a focus for us because loyalty in Web2 is broken. From sports teams to  movie studios there is a common problem. They lack a direct relationship with their customers. Simultaneously, consumers and fans are seeking new ways to demonstrate and be rewarded for their patronage. Web3 helps loyalty programs shift to open ecosystems, enables brands to build direct relationships with customers, and fosters composability among loyalty programs. 

Notable partnerships:

• Cosmose AI — Loyalty-based shopping app that enables users to buy with crypto in order to lower transaction fees for both merchants and consumers. Cosmose represents a practical and real-world use case with initial traction in Singapore.
• Santo Spirit — Tequila brand of Sammy Hagar and Guy Fieri is launching a loyalty program on NEAR that includes virtual tastings, autographed collectibles and mystery NFTs for patrons.
• Tokenproof — Tokenproof powers custom, token-gated experiences for some of the most notable Web3 communities and the biggest Web2 brands via gated Shopify storefronts and real world interactive experiences.

Creator economy: The NEAR Foundation has partnered with a number of entrepreneurs in the creator economy. These builders are using Web3 to give creators greater ownership and control, new monetization and royalty channels, and novel ways to interact with their community. Similarly, we are excited about new blockchain-based decentralized social networks and closed 2 partners who are building exclusively on NEAR (not yet announced). 

Notable Partnerships:

• SLiC Images  — A digital rights-management platform for independent photographers and videographers to license and monetize their content founded and led by former NBA all-star Baron Davis and built on Mintbase technology.
• ARterra — ARterra is  leveling up fan engagement tools for game developers, individual creators, and brands via its Web3-based battle pass, quest, and duel systems that integrate seamlessly with Web2 platforms such as Discord, Youtube Gaming, and Twitch, as well as Web3 games.
• Djooky — Djooky is a music streaming and discovery tool that combines an online music competition with a marketplace. Musicians  can participate directly in the marketplace or get discovered by voting fans who earn rewards for being talent scouts  during the quarterly competitions. 

Gaming and Metaverse: This is another focus area since Web3 unlocks new forms of digital ownership and in-game economies. In gaming, while not exclusively focused on Korea, we are spending considerable effort there given Korea’s history as a pioneer in gaming monetization, and Korean studios’ deep expertise in Web3, especially compared to other regions.

Notable partnerships: 

• Netmarble — One of the largest game publishers worldwide is bringing a suite of Web3 games to NEAR.
• Vortex — Web3 subsidiary of INVEN, the “Reddit of Korea” and largest game media community in Korea with over 7M monthly active users is building exclusively on NEAR.
• PipeFlare — A provider of 17 casual Web3 games is transitioning from another chain to integrate exclusively with NEAR.

Sustainability: The NEAR Foundation continues to back entrepreneurs and governments trying to solve environmental problems by leveraging the blockchain. Web3 can support supply chain transparency, verification and proof of green initiatives, and carbon credit systems. 

Notable partnerships:

• SankalpTaru — One of the largest sustainability NGOs in India is leveraging the blockchain to bring accountability and transparency to afforestation activities. They have planted over 3.5 million trees and supported  over 30,000 farmers. 
• Raigarh District Administration — This district in India launched a blockchain based monitoring system for tracking industrial corporate social responsibility afforestation activities. In addition to the government participation, over 50 industry participants are involved in the initiative. 
• Flow Carbon — One of the pioneering climate technology companies, they are working towards bringing carbon credits onto the blockchain. Carbon offsetting will become more accessible and transparent to major institutional players through leveraging the power of blockchain technology.

Infrastructure: This is an important focus for NEAR Foundation partnerships as it serves as the building blocks for new use cases. We aim to foster an environment that empowers builders through innovative infrastructure that helps projects better prototype and develop, communicate, and scale.

• Alibaba Cloud — Alibaba Cloud is collaborating with NEAR Foundation to provide Remote Procedure Call (RPC) as a service to NEAR ecosystem projects. In addition, Alibaba Cloud will focus on multi-chain data indexing which helps drive the adoption of the Blockchain Operating System (BOS) through supporting interoperability across different blockchains. 
• Urbit — An operating system designed to run peer-to-peer apps. Combined with the BOS, we hope to build the world’s first fully decentralized development environment.
• Fractal — One of the leading Web3 native identity infrastructure providers, Fractal will build important decentralized identity frameworks for the BOS.

Supporting Existing Partners

During Q2, the BD team also made significant progress in implementing the NEAR Foundation’s product strategy centered around the Blockchain Operating System (BOS). Workshops targeting both new potential partners and existing partners were organized, aiming to educate on the new BOS product strategy. These workshops were attended by 80% of our partners and have helped build awareness and understanding in the ecosystem about the potential of BOS in the market.

Our existing partners have played a crucial role in driving our success in Q2. By collaborating closely with them and supporting their initiatives, we have achieved significant milestones and further strengthened our ecosystem.

Identifying successes:

• SWEAT — The number 1 free app in over 60 countries which rewards users daily steps with a new-generation currency, launched a highly successful USDT campaign that acquired over 300K monthly active users (MAUs). Plans for supporting SWEAT’s launch in the US during Q3/Q4 are in place. Additionally, the testing and launch of Web3 new products, such as the Swap Feature and NFT game, are currently underway, aimed at further engaging new users.
• Cosmose AI — A $500M global platform that predicts and influences how people shop, secured approval from smartphone manufacturers to launch the Web3 version of their Lockscreen product, scheduled for Q4 2023. This is a significant milestone as Cosmose AI continues to apply web3 principles to further advance the AI-driven retail ecosystem. Next up in Q3 will be the launch of their cash back product (Kai-Kai) on mainnet.
• PlayEmber — A mobile game studio built on NEAR and backed by Big Brain Holdings, Shima Capital and others, received approval from both App Store and Google Play for the launch of the new version of their app, responsible for  51K MAUs, doubling their pre-app store listing numbers.
• Mintbase — A leading NFT marketplace built on NEAR celebrated the impact of their grantees on the ecosystem, highlighting their progress and achievements supported by the Mintbase Grants Program. 13 projects have been successfully nurtured through this program: NiftyRent, Namesky, QSTN, Explorins,Ailand, PWX, WallID  Roketo, Gorilla Shops, Cootoo, SLIC Images, Puzzle Task, and Everything.

Geographical Focus

The NEAR Foundation has taken an international approach to BD focusing on North America, EMEA, and Asia, specifically Korea, India, and Singapore. While the environment in North America remains uncertain for many entrepreneurs and enterprises due to ongoing concerns around regulation, we are continuing to see strong interest in Web3 in EMEA and Asia. BD will continue to prioritize these regions in 2023.

We have always had an international footprint, and continue to foster communities around the world to thrive. NEAR community hubs generate local awareness and onboard new users, as well as support projects building on NEAR. Led by local entrepreneurs, and operating as independent legal entities, these hubs are crucial in helping NEAR Foundation reach its missions and objectives around the world. 

NEAR Foundation has been supporting, through grants, two types of Regional Hub models — community hubs and partnership hubs. The goal of the community regional hubs is to build local community presence in regions, specifically targeted towards builders and those who want to get involved in NEAR’s decentralized ecosystem, as well as to build brand awareness in those regions. Partnership hubs have the specific mandate to forge deep relationships with partners in the region to build on the BOS.

Starting with partnership hubs, NEAR Foundation made significant strides in expanding its presence in India and Korea during Q2, securing pivotal deals and paving the way for further geographic expansion.

Korea

We achieved significant progress in Korea with strategic wins, strengthening our position in what we consider a leading blockchain market. In Q1/ Q2, we closed 9 partnerships focused on gaming, entertainment and infrastructure to increase NEAR’s awareness and traction for chain adoption. Gaming is especially interesting in Korea due to the large audience, established game studios and blockchain expertise. Being a key part of the strategy, gaming  has strong blockchain use cases with digital ownership, in-game economies and monetization models. We partnered with top Korean gaming industry leaders such as Netmarble’s MARBLEX, the blockchain-powered subsidiary of the well-established developer and  publisher of mobile games, and Vortex Gaming, the Web3 subsidiary of Korea’s largest gaming community INVEN, to drive future growth. 

In addition to gaming, we announced an exciting business partnership with Mirae Asset, a subsidiary of Asia’s largest financial group, Mirae Asset Global (headquartered in South Korea), to develop Web3 technology. Xangle, a leading South Korean crypto data and research platform, has added metrics for NEAR Protocol and the Sweat Economy to make information on the NEAR ecosystem more accessible in the region. With the deals signed, partnership announcements, community activations and development activities, we are very excited for the future opportunities in Korea. 

India

In India, we have achieved noteworthy progress on multiple fronts. In Q1/ Q2, we closed 12 partnerships focused on government, sustainability, entertainment, and the infrastructure space. Industry leading  partnerships such as Skoda and Shemaroo, will act as lighthouse partnerships for the region. In addition to the enterprise use cases, NEAR enabled sustainability and impact projects with SankalpTaru and District administration Raigarh (State of Chhattisgarh)  to bring transparency, traceability, and accountability in afforestation initiatives. We continue to engage with the developer community in India and raise awareness about BOS. We achieved substantial media coverage in India, further consolidating the brand awareness. In addition, we are engaging think tanks and government bodies by conducting/participating in Web3 workshops and brainstorming sessions to bridge the awareness gap.  

Building stronger connections with the NEAR ecosystem 

After efforts in generating and implementing feedback from the NEAR community, NEAR Foundation’s Community Team has kicked off several initiatives that have been driving engagement, including: 

• Actively leveraging NEAR platforms such as the Official NEAR Discord, Telegram, and NEARProtocol Twitter, the NEAR Foundation Community Team has been running regular Twitter Spaces and AMAs with many NEAR projects to continuously surface the many amazing things being built on NEAR throughout the wider network.
• NEAR Foundation’s commitment to transparency and stronger community connections continues through bi-weekly live Town Halls. These sessions, which take place every other Wednesday at 3:00 pm UTC on the NEARProtocol YouTube channel, provide an open platform for the NEAR Foundation leadership team to share progress on OKRs and for the core teams to deliver updates. NEAR ecosystem project teams and NEAR Foundation partners also have the opportunity to showcase what they’re actively building on NEAR. In the endeavor to further engage and boost community interaction, a Town Hall Hub has recently been developed on the BOS. This portal aims to serve as an open forum for all discussions, recommendations, and dialogues surrounding the Town Halls. It’s not just about receiving updates — it’s also about giving the NEAR community the power to shape and participate in these conversations. 
• To boost active community participation and drive engagement, the Foundation’s Community Team has been running weekly Quiz Night events on the NEAR Protocol Telegram. This initiative is designed to not only drive community engagement but also to create a cohesive and informed community, deeply aligned with NEAR Foundation’s mission and vision. We’ve put together a concise report on the recent success and feedback this initiative has received, which you can check out here.

NEAR in the press 

Q2 saw a number of top news stories from NEAR’s thriving ecosystem. NEAR was covered in over 300 articles across the globe in Q2, including over 20 tier 1 stories in outlets including  TechCrunch,  CoinDesk, Forbes  Journal du Coin , Entrepreneur India,  Business Insider Africa, Yahoo Finance  Yahoo Japan, Korea Herald, New Economy Japan  and Bloomberg. NEAR also appeared in over 40  tier 2 publications in outlets including the Block,  City AM, Blockworks, and Cointelegraph.

Headlines included BOS going live, the launch of Horizon, and the Women in Web3 Changemakers list, as well as coverage from many of our partnership announcements, ecosystem hubs, and progress from many of NEAR Protocol’s ecosystem projects. Stories that made an impact included Cosmose AI partnering with NEAR protocol, collaborations with Alibaba, Skoda India, Vortex Gaming and Mirae Asset in Korea, and the launch of SailGP’s Web3 driven app The Dock, as well as Santos Spirit Tequila’s NFT.

To find out more about NEAR Foundation’s and the NEAR ecosystem’s press coverage you can check out the  monthly roundups below:

NEAR Foundation PR Roundup for April

NEAR Foundation PR Roundup for May

NEAR Foundation PR Roundup for June

Ecosystem Highlights 

NEAR Ecosystem on BOS

With the announcement and launch of the Blockchain Operating system earlier this year, we have seen a splash of developments from projects both in and outside of the NEAR ecosystem building on BOS and deploying widgets and front ends. In Q2 we have seen both existing and new NEAR projects building on BOS, including Harmonic Guild, Flipside, Satori, Pikespeak, Genadrop, NEARWEEK, and others. These amazing teams are building components ranging from audio/video distribution platforms, data & analytics dashboard tools, no-code multi-chain NFT creation & minting tools, DAO tools, and news & media. We also saw an incredible example of BOS’s interoperability with Zavodil’s composable multi-chain app that seamlessly integrates with any connected blockchain wallet.
Also in Q2, Galxe — a leading Web3 community building platform with over 10 million unique users to date — also deployed a component on BOS with the aim of bringing a seamless onboarding experience for SPACE ID’s referral program, “Voyage Season 2”. This integration makes Galxe the first major Web3 partner utilizing NEAR’s BOS for its offerings, simplifying the process for users to register .bnb domains and participate in the SPACE ID Voyage program through near.org.

NEAR’s BOS promotes collaboration among builders by allowing them to fork and build reusable on-chain widgets, deploy decentralized front ends, as well as discover other dApps, components, and communities — all on one platform. This makes it easier for builders to create multi-chain experiences, extending NEAR beyond just being another Layer 1 network and transforming it into a decentralized OS that fosters collaboration across ecosystems.

NEAR Ecosystem Project Updates

In Q2, the NEAR ecosystem continued to see projects pushing large developments as well as launching on NEAR in verticals ranging from DeFi and payment solutions, to gaming and infrastructure. A few examples follow. 

ChangeNOW, a leading cryptocurrency payment gateway, stepped up their game by incorporating NEAR, opening up new avenues for businesses to transact using NEAR tokens. Meanwhile, WOOFi DEX made its debut into on-chain derivatives on NEAR, rolling out the beta version of its perpetual futures powered by Orderly Network. The platform offers users the convenience of centralized exchanges coupled with the self-custody benefits of decentralized exchanges, shaping the future of on-chain derivatives trading.

Further diversifying NEAR’s ecosystem, Namesky launched on NEAR Mainnet in Q2. Leveraging NEAR Protocol’s default feature of unique named wallets, Namesky acts as a marketplace for buying and selling NEAR accounts as NFTs using audited contracts, akin to having Ethereum Name Service (ENS) on NEAR.

Expanding NEAR’s cross-chain relationships, Duel Network (originally a BSC project) expanded their presence on NEAR with the launch of Duel Soccer. This integration not only broadens NEAR’s ecosystem but also elevates Duel Network’s visibility across multiple chains.

In the realm of security/trust, Gatenox, a specialized Web3 KYC platform, integrated with NEAR, making its KYC services available to NEAR-based projects, offering an extra layer of trust and safety.

Overall, although there were no projects on NEAR fundraising in Q2, the NEAR ecosystem continued to see growth, innovation, and cross-chain integration.

AI, ChatGPT, and NEAR

As interest in AI and ChatGPT continues to grow, we are observing increasingly innovative developments bridging between ChatGPT and NEAR. Among the pioneers working on these developments is Peter Salomonson, a seasoned NEAR builder. Salomonson has integrated NEAR with ChatGPT to create a unique widget that enables users to generate, play, and download their own custom drum beats. 

The Mintbase team is also adding to NEAR x ChatGPT developments by developing a versatile plugin for NEAR smart contracts and widgets. Mintbase’s integration — developed by team member Luis — is capable of writing, compiling, and deploying contracts, and it can also generate user interfaces based on the contracts’ ABI as well as deploy these interfaces as BOS widgets. 

These developments are a testament to the continued growth, innovation, and vibrancy of the NEAR ecosystem. They also underscore the origin story of NEAR and its deeply rooted connection with AI. 

Before co-founding NEAR Protocol, Illia Polosukhin had a rich history in the AI space, having worked on Google’s TensorFlow. When Illia and Alex Skidanov founded NEAR in 2017, it was originally conceived as a machine learning platform. In fact, at the time it was known as Near.ai. This background has informed NEAR’s belief in the intersection of blockchain and AI, and the potential for these technologies to work in harmony to create decentralized, intelligent systems that can drive innovation and empower individuals.

For more insights on this topic, here are some recent articles featuring Illia and NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament, in which they discuss the intersection of AI and blockchain and the potential of these technologies to revolutionize various industries:

• “Illia Polosukhin: Building Near’s Blockchain, Embedding AI”: This article discusses Illia Polosukhin’s journey to blockchain success and his work on NEAR’s blockchain, including the integration of AI.
• “Blockchain and AI: at the crossroads”: In this article, Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation, discusses the intersection of blockchain and AI, and how these technologies can be used to create a more equitable and open digital world.

A Look Ahead 

Looking ahead to Q3, the NEAR Foundation is continuing its current strategic focus. 

In addition, we have worked closely with the ecosystem to paint a more complete picture of what a fully functioning Web3 ecosystem should look like, which is more of a multi pronged approach:

The overarching framework is made up of three models:

• Participants Model — the Participants are the entities that take action within the ecosystem. This looks at three core audiences: Developers, Businesses, and Accounts. Developers build applications for Businesses, who in turn create experiences for the Accounts who interact with them. Each audience is important to monitor as each is dependent on each other.
• Monetization Model — the Monetization model is the lifeblood of the ecosystem, much like an economy is for a country. Monitoring how capital flows in and out, as well as the transaction volume within the ecosystem, is important to show how prosperous and active participants are within the economy.
• Public Goods Model — the Public Goods model underpins the framework, making it like the roads and power supply for a city. At the core is the protocol itself, but it also looks at validators and the overall health of the network.

NEAR Foundation has primarily focused on the Participants Model to date, but it’s important we have observability and an aligned ecosystem approach to all metrics within all of these three models. To support this, the NEAR Foundation has helped create the Champions Sync — a collective of key ecosystem participants who are responsible for rallying the ecosystem around areas of the model that need attention. This is still in the early stages, and more about the model and action taken will be circulated shortly.

NEAR Foundation will continue to focus on unique use cases that drive the adoption of Web3 technology. Our commitment to maintaining a high bar for partnerships and a disciplined approach to capital allocation will remain the cornerstone of our success.  The Foundation will also continue in its bottom up support, being at the service of the community to help empower participants to get involved. We will also continue to support projects to thrive through the NEAR Horizon program. 

As NEAR continues to drive forward into uncertain market conditions, it’s more important than ever to prioritize the things that matter and stay true to our vision to create the Open Web. 

This NEAR Foundation Transparency Report (the “Report“) is provided for informational purposes only. The information contained herein is provided on an “as is” basis, and the NEAR Foundation makes no representations or warranties, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of the information contained in this Report.

The NEAR Foundation, its affiliates, directors, employees, and agents, shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in the information provided herein. NEAR Foundation reserves the right to update, modify, or amend any information contained in this Report without prior notice. This Report is not intended to provide financial, investment, legal, tax, or any other professional advice. Readers should consult with their own professional advisors before making any decisions based on the information contained in this Report.

The post NEAR Foundation Transparency Report: Q2 2023 appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

This transparency report is one of NEAR Foundation’s vital contributions to the NEAR ecosystem’s long-term health and viability.

NEAR Foundation Mission and Purpose

NEAR’s mission is to:

Remove every barrier for Web3 creators, by creating an ecosystem that is uniquely simple, safe, scalable, and sustainable.

The Foundation’s purpose is the promotion and development of new technologies and applications, especially in the fields of open and decentralized software architectures, to enable innovation that benefits people around the world. This includes but is not limited to promoting and developing NEAR Protocol and related technologies, as well as promoting and supporting decentralized applications running on the NEAR Protocol.

To deliver on its purpose, the Foundation is organized around 3 core areas of focus: awareness, support, and governance.

Below, the Foundation shares details of how it allocated funding in Q3 of 2022. This includes the rationale informing these decisions as well as insight into future plans as the ecosystem heads into 2023 and beyond.

Core Metrics

• The number of accounts on the NEAR Protocol grew from 15.6 million at the end of Q2 to over 20.6 million accounts at the end of Q3. 
• Weekly Active Wallets surged to 280k per week — up from 26k at the end of Q2.
• The number of weekly active developers held flat at 1.1k during this period.

Total and Circulating Supply

As of the end of Q3, NEAR’s total supply increased to 1.1b NEAR. This is up 14m compared to  the end of Q2 due to inflation and fewer transaction fees burned. 

90% of the 5% annual inflation is sent to Validators to be paid out as staking rewards, with the residual 10% returned to the NEAR Foundation Treasury.

Circulating supply increased 74m NEAR to 798m (73% of total supply) due to further unlocks in both the NEAR Foundation Treasury and contractual vesting schedules.

Ecosystem Holdings

At the end of Q3, 67% of total supply had been deployed to projects, partners, contributors, backers, and the broader ecosystem.

465m NEAR had been staked (42% of total supply), representing 62% of all NEAR owned by the ecosystem.

126 validators supported the network, with 33% of total staked NEAR delegated to the 9 largest validators.

The NEAR Foundation Treasury

At the end of Q3, NEAR Foundation held fiat reserves of $450m and 358m NEAR. 

The Foundation has continued to adopt a highly responsible approach to treasury management in order to minimize the risk of loss in a turbulent market. Exposure to non-NEAR assets therefore has been limited, with fiat reserves held in AAA-rated Swiss  bank accounts. This strategy helps ensure that the Foundation maintains sufficient resources and runway even if the market downturn lasts for multiple years.. 

As a result, the Foundation is in an extremely strong position to continue to distribute funds to high-quality projects for the foreseeable future.

The NEAR Foundation in Q3

During Q3, NEAR Foundation continued to support high quality projects that will support our mission to onboard 1 billion users.

In total, the Foundation committed $39M during Q3, further contributing to our Q1’21 commitment of  an $800 million ecosystem fund. 

The $800m ecosystem fund is split into four broad groups:

• $350M – Proximity DeFi Grants – to help projects in the space of financial innovation within the NEAR ecosystem. (Proximity will be publishing its own transparency report on December 21, 2022.) 
• $100M – Startup Funds – to decentralize capital deployment into dedicated investment funds within the ecosystem.
• $250M – Foundation Grants – to support projects building on NEAR through direct investment and grants.
• $100M – Regional Funds – to establish physical hubs in key regions around the world to provide a local presence. 

Funds Distributed So Far from $800m Ecosystem Fund (to Partners):

Below, the Foundation shares details of how it allocated funding as of Q3 of 2022. This includes both the rationale for these decisions and insight into future plans.

Startup Funds

Allocation: $100 million 

Committed: $28 million

Committed in Q3: $10 million 

NEAR Foundation believes that it should not be the sole distributor of capital to developers and entrepreneurs within the NEAR ecosystem. As necessary as the Foundation is to NEAR’s growth, decisions should not be made in a vacuum through a single centralized organization. 

To help decentralize NEAR, the Foundation has in turn decentralized capital deployment. The Foundation has allocated grant funds to MetaWeb, MOVE Capital, Stealth Capital, and Open Web Collective, each of which is focused on funding projects within the NEAR ecosystem according to their own vision. 

So far, the Foundation has committed $28 million to the existing funds. Specific updates from each fund are listed below:

• MetaWeb, a NEAR-native investment fund, has raised $30m from Sequoia, in addition to NF. MetaWeb has deployed over $11m across 36 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 20 investments to date totalling over $7m, 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. Stealth had deployed $6m by the end of Q3.
• 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.​

Foundation Grants 

Allocation: $250 million 

Committed: $159 million

Committed in Q3: $26 million 

Foundation Grants cover a broad range of investments from grant allocation to direct investment. Grants are primarily focused on the following verticals: Infrastructure & Integrations, Gaming & Entertainment, NFTs, and DAOs.

The Foundation has specific strategies for each vertical and has deployed capital across all of them.

• Infrastructure and Integrations – “Infrastructure” is a catch-all term for key ecosystem partnerships, integrations, and technologies that support access to mainnet and successful development on NEAR. These key components include: frictionless onboarding solutions, wallets, bridges, oracles, custodians, zero-knowledge technologies, privacy tools, and improved tooling for developers. Integrations with the NEAR network are laying the groundwork for the next phase of the community’s growth, which is bringing more users from Web2 into Web3 — what the Foundation calls Web 2.5. The following partnerships have been instrumental in making progress towards this initiative.
  • Key projects: Aurora, Pagoda, Calimero, Switchboard, Octopus, Brave, Coinbase, BitGo, Fireblocks, USDT, USDC, Token Terminal, OnMachina, Keypom
• Gaming / Entertainment – The Web3 gaming space is still wide open and rapidly evolving. The first wave of Web3 games proved that there was consumer demand for blockchain-based gaming. Right now, there is a great deal of room for experimentation, iterating on long-term sustainable models, introducing permissionless composability, and creating new forms of NFTs as well as games that are partially or even fully on-chain.
  • Key projects: Armored Kingdom, SWEAT, Endlesss, Niche, playEmber, eFuse
• NFTs –  NFTs on NEAR present a massive opportunity, in which NEAR’s flexible infrastructure and focus on usability are ideal for many NFT use cases, especially those focused on utility. With its strong position in the Web3 space, NEAR has the potential to become a leader in fostering sustainable and innovative NFT use cases that provide lasting value for all participants.
  • Key projects: Few & Far, Paras, Mintbase, Satori, Apollo42, Tradeport, Bee NFT/Beexperience, Tamago
• DAOs – The Foundation believes NEAR has the strongest no-code, easy to use DAO tech stack in Web3 and sees DAOs as key enablers of decentralization. NEAR is helping communities govern their treasuries and activities in a completely decentralized way, with the help of our DAO stack.  We will continue to facilitate DAO use cases in investments, NFTs, gaming, sustainability, science, and beyond.
  • Key projects: AstroDAO, SailGP, Unchain Fund , Flamingo DAO, Breeder DAO

In Q3, NEAR Foundation distributed a further $26 million to over 100 projects, including Mintbase, Circle, Satori, Clear Street, and OnMachina, as well as to Caerus to set up an Entertainment Venture Studio.

Regional Hubs 

Allocation: $100 million 

Committed: $36 million 

Committed in Q3: $3m – Banyan (US Hub), Balkans 

As part of NEAR’s goal of  reaching a billion people, the Foundation has been actively helping NEAR community projects launch hubs across the globe. To be global, we must first be local — and that means connecting with people where they are and empowering them to build Web3 projects that address their own communities and needs. NEAR Hubs host local events in local languages to find the best people and projects and to forge partnerships with local organizations.

To date, NEAR Foundation has launched seven regional hubs. An extension for the Balkans Hub and the launch of the US hub were announced in Q3: 

• Ukraine Hub (winding down as of Q4 2022) 

• Kenya Hub (Sankore) 
• Balkans Hub
• Vietnam Hub
• India Hub
• South Korea Hub
• US Hub 

The Foundation chose these locations based on a variety of factors, including Web3 adoption, number of developers, regulatory environments, and available capital.

NEAR Digital Collective Update

Early in Q3 (July), NEAR announced the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC) — a pioneering effort in decentralizing ecosystem governance and funding. Through the NDC DAO, high-level decisions will be made on protocol and ecosystem development through a “fund-of-funds” structure, where working groups, projects, and ecosystem funds will build communities and invest in specific regions and verticals. NEAR sees the NDC as a potential model approach across Web3 for the creation and implementation of truly decentralized, on-chain governance.

During Q3, following a positive community response, a Governance Working Group was formed to take the next steps to launch and implement the NDC. They solicited applications for interested contributors to join the Governance Working Group. This working group is tasked with producing a detailed roadmap and key milestones for NEAR governance implementation, focusing on the following areas:

• NEAR Constitution – Creation and ratification of shared values and basic rights for all community members. NEAR ecosystem’s north star.
• Governance Framework & Proposal Process – Vision for a decentralized governance system & core governance components confirming structure, responsibilities, participation rules, and dispute resolution process.
• Technical Governance Development Plan – On-chain practical implementation of the governance framework.
• Legal Framework – Legal structure for the governance structure to ensure sustainability, risk mitigation, and true community ownership.
• Community Engagement Guidelines – Standards to encourage positive, sustainable community behavior and interaction consistent with the values of the NEAR Constitution.

Through Q3, the Governance Working Group has been working on a draft of a NEAR Constitution, a Legal Framework  for governance structure, and a Code of Conduct. Follow along for the latest from the NDC, including weekly updates.

The Road Ahead

NEAR remains committed to its mission to:

Remove every barrier for Web3 creators, by creating an ecosystem that is uniquely simple, safe, scalable and sustainable.

The Foundation will continue to support the ecosystem, drive awareness to NEAR and Web3, and — now more than ever — educate regulators across the globe.

We will continue to invest and deploy capital in the key verticals mentioned above: Infrastructure, Integrations, Gaming/Entertainment, NFTs, DeFi, 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.

For any questions or feedback, please reach out to hello@near.foundation.

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!

The post NEAR Foundation Transparency Report : Q3 2022 appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

You can find the quarterly reports here.

You can find monthly reports on funding here.  

Last week’s transparency report can be found here. 

The importance of transparency

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. 

New Accounts and Active Accounts

New Accounts are new wallets being created on the NEAR blockchain. In November the number of new accounts has been declining. This week, new account creation has averaged 16,000 new accounts per day, down from a monthly average of 24,000 wallets per 24 hours.

Looking at the quarter, the highest day for new account creation in Q3 was September 13 where 130,000 new wallets were created in one day. Collectively, these numbers equate to 22,454,000 total wallets on the NEAR blockchain.

The Daily Number of Active Accounts is a measure of how many wallets on NEAR are making transactions on chain. Over the last week, the number of daily active accounts has been on average, above 50,000, remaining consistent across the week.

Historically, as the chart below shows, this is a decline from highs of more than 100,000 active accounts on the network. The highest number of active accounts on any one day in Q3 this year was logged on September 14, where 183,000 accounts were active.

New Contracts and Active Contracts

Contracts on NEAR are simply programs stored on a blockchain that run when predetermined conditions are met. The Daily Number of New Contracts is a valuable metric for understanding the health and growth of an ecosystem.

The more active contracts there are, the more projects are actively engaging with the NEAR protocol. The chart below shows a cyclical rhythm to new contracts, with rises and falls a common occurrence. Over the last seven days, the number of new contracts has risen from a low of 12 new contracts on November 27 to a high off 44 new contracts on November 30.

Active contracts is a measure of contracts that execute in a 24 hour period. This number has remained consistent throughout the last week with an average of 500 active contracts on the NEAR network. Taking a historical perspective on these numbers, the average has declined in Q3, with previous highs in active contract activity coming in the third week of September 2022.

Used Gas and Gas Fee

Gas Fees are a catch all term for the cost of making transactions on the NEAR network. These fees are paid to validators for their services to the blockchain. Without these fees, there would be no incentive for anyone to keep the network secure.

Over the last few weeks, the daily amount of gas, expressed here as PetaGas, which is the equivalent of 0.1 $NEAR, has risen. To learn more about Gas on NEAR, there is an excellent explainer in the NEAR White Paper. The Daily Amount of Used Gas has increased, briefly topping 8,000 PetaGas, before returning to the weekly average of just over 7,000 PetaGas.

The Daily Amount of Gas correlates with the Daily Gas Fee used on the network. Over the last week, there has been an uptick in the amount of Gas used, which can be brought on by a number of different factors. One of the most common is increased activity among users of the network.

Daily Transactions

The daily number of transactions is a record of how many times the blockchain logged a transaction. The earliest data available is from the third and fourth weeks of November. The data shows that daily transactions had been trending upwards and at the end of November, were averaging more than 500,000 transactions per day. Since then, the number has declined sharply and now sits below 400,000.

These reports will be generated each week and published on Friday.

The post NEAR Transparency Report: December 2 appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

You can find the quarterly reports here.

You can find monthly reports on funding here.  

Last week’s transparency report can be found here. 

This week, the Foundation is focusing on the state of token supply in the ecosystem.

The importance of transparency

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. 

Total Supply

At Genesis, the NEAR blockchain was created with one billion tokens. Since then, the number of supply has increased to 1.1 billion. This number steadily rises due to inflation. For reference, 90% of the 5% annual inflation is sent to Validators to be paid out as staking rewards, with the residual 10% returned to the NEAR Foundation Treasury.

The total number of live accounts has been increasing rapidly, up to a total of 22 million. At present, new accounts are created on NEAR at an average rate between 35,000 and 38,000 new accounts per day. This number is down from the week before, which average 37-39,000 accounts per day.

Circulating Supply Statistics

Below is a break down of the circulating supply. The blue section represents the total number of $NEAR, and the green section represents tokens not currently locked in lockup contracts.

The number of tokens in circulating supply has been steadily increasing at a faster rate than the total circulating supply. In the past week, 3 million more $NEAR has moved from locked contracts to circulating, taking the number of circulating tokens from 827 million, to 830 million. This is typically due to further unlocks within both the NEAR Foundation Treasury and contractual vesting schedules.

Active Accounts

The most active accounts on NEAR are displayed here as the most active in the past 14 days. The most active account is relay.aurora, which is the main conduit by which Aurora moves transactions between Ethereum and NEAR. In the past two weeks, it recorded more than 900,000 transactions.

The second most active account was oracle.sweat, which is allows SWEAT users to communicate with the NEAR blockchain. The oracle.sweat account made just under 800,000 transactions in the last two weeks. The remaining accounts, collectively recorded more than a million transactions in the time period.

Daily Number of Transactions

The daily number of transactions is a record of how many times the blockchain logged a transaction. The earliest data available is from the second week of November. The data shows that daily transactions have been trending upwards and sit just under one million transactions per day. This is significant growth from the previous average of 400,000 per day.

These reports will be generated each week and published on Friday.

The post NEAR Transparency Report: November 25 appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

Summary 

1. Grant data

1.1. Approved Grant program data

1.2. Grant highlights

1.3 Completed projects & Milestone data

1.4 Effectiveness of the funding program

2. External funding in the NEAR Ecosystem

3. Ecosystem highlights

1. Grant data

1.1. Approved Grant Program data

Data reflects projects that have applied for a Grant via the Grants Program and that have been signed by the NEAR Foundation during the month of October (01.10.2022 to 31.10.2022).

 *Note: all applications have been processed.

General Grant data

Grant tracks**

** For more information please have a look at our grant tracks.

Grants per category 

NFTs                                 5

Infrastructure / Wallets             3

Social Impact                        1

Institutional / Financial            1

Gaming / Metaverse                   1

DAOs                                                 1

Other                                2

Grants per country (Top 5)

United States                3

United Kingdom               3

Switzerland                  1

Singapore                     1

Thailand                      1

1.2. Grant highlights 

This section provides highlights of grants that have been signed during the month.

NFT projects 

Disrupting Hollywood by allowing retail to invest in film making, create experiences for token holders and collectives. Founded by an Executive Producer who has sold shows with Matt Damon and Jimmy Kimmel, and a 3x Tech Founder (USC Law/London School of Economics) whose last web3 startup reached over 500k holders and $500m mcap. 

The Platform allows for easy, self-certified and third-party validation of files, with the results stored securely on a blockchain, creating an irrefutable record of activity. This will increase trust and transparency in the NEAR NFT space and be a platform for existing and upcoming NFTs.

Web3 gaming launchpad and building SDKs for gaming developers. The team has plenty of experience building web3 gaming platforms with their current company called Playfix

Data base on the NEAR blockchain that acts as a repository for information relating to a property, like a passport for a house. The goal is to provide a transparent platform to make buying and selling houses simpler, safer and quicker.

NFT.HipHop is being developed to be the primary destination for all Hip Hop-centric NFT/Web3 projects. The founder is deeply rooted within the NEAR Ecosystem and aims to bring his existing large web2 community in the Hip Hop space to NEAR.

Infrastructure / Wallets projects 

NFT Analytics tool that allows tracking of held NFTs and provides updates for  upcoming mints and collections, with the focus on approaching the communities and people about NEAR. Strong connection with the TENK Bay and drives NFT growth within NEAR. 

MAP Protocol is an omnichain layer of Web3 with highly secure cross-chain communication built upon light-client and zk-SNARK technology. MAP Protocol connects both EVM & non-EVM chains, extending the EVM layer with pre-compiled smart contracts of destination chains seamlessly.

NEARBlocks features optimisations being provided by Invoker Labs.

Institutional / Financial projects 

Datality brings trust and safety to connect researchers with research data providers. A two-sided data marketplace with blockchain as the transparent layer of trust.

Social Impact projects 

AIDONIC offers digital cash and voucher assistance, powered by NEAR and by ensuring end-to-end transparency, cost- and speed efficiency and accountability for social fundraising and last-mile aid distribution.

DAO’s

Provide insights for the Near Ecosystem that improves its ability to collaborate effectively and operate thriving communities thanks to predictive indicators of viability as well as diagnostic tools for DAO Communities. 

Gaming / Metaverse projects 

Pixudi is an NFT based blockchain project where a traditional race board game meets Heroes of Magic mechanics. It is more than a game, it’s bridge from the real world of board games to the blockchain world of NFT based on DAO mechanics.

Other projects 

Modular collection of social and identity protocols. Developers can use part of all of the stack for anything from adding social features to deploying a fully decentralized, token-aware web3 social network. decent.land is built using Arweave for permanent storage and NEAR for user-facing contracts.

EV charging network in the Americas with a web3 value creation mechanism for the drivers. Team has installed over 100 charging slots in the last six months and plans to integrate NEAR for settlements while increasing the installation of charging stations.

1.3 Completed projects & Milestone data 

Grant agreements are structured with milestones. Depending on the selected grant track, a grant can have from 1 to 5 milestones. For more information the funding team invites you to explore our milestone guide. 

Projects completed per category 

Infrastructure / Wallets             3

Gaming / Metaverse                   3

DAOs                   1

Other                                2

Infrastructure / Wallets projects 

An inheritor of the official NEAR wallet. The most well-known and feature filled web wallet for the NEAR Ecosystem.

Coding to earn, sell open-source product as NFT. BytePay is a platform that supports paid tasks to complete open-source projects on Github. Not only can you  code to earn but also sell open-source product as NFT.

The development of an MVP for a NEAR blockchain event push notification service. DApp developers would be able to subscribe to their contract events in their backend without having to implement their own indexer, instead implementing webhook endpoints to which this service would push updates.

Gaming / Metaverse projects

Reality Near is a multi-metaverse that will combine Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technologies so that users can experience their different enhanced realities like never before.

MeowRush is a PVP multiplayer game on the NEAR blockchain with different tournament modes: Race, Battle Royale, Obstacles, and Arcade. MeowRush is going to be integrated into the Meowverse metaverse with a Multi-chain ecosystem.

GameFi for the masses, built on their own native Unreal game engine  with Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality engine.

DAO’s

Mute is building a safe and secure community that focuses on protecting members of the crypto community by providing accurate and up-to-date information on projects, risk assessments, and education. 

Other projects

SharpShark is a WEB3 copyright protection service that helps businesses protect and monetize their textual, visual, and other copyrightable content.

A decentralized co-op platform for AMM liquidity providing that will double LP investors’ return on invested capital while at the same time boost liquidity for projects’ tokens.

1.4 Effectiveness of the funding program  

Total external funding (overall amount) came from projects that have received a grant (around 40%).

2. External funding in the NEAR Ecosystem

This section provides information about external funding in the NEAR ecosystem

• 2 closed projects in Q4 ‘22 – ($6.2M)
• 2 finalizing rounds
• 20 new fundraising processes kicked off 
• 22 VC intros made

Closed Rounds (Quarter-to-Date)

• EmpireDAO – Raised a $2.8m seed round with participation from NEAR Foundation to build a global community starting with a flagship location in NYC. Please stop by the NEAR space at EmpireDAO if you are ever in NYC! 

• t2.world – Raised a $3.4m seed round led by Inflection and Archetype to empower readers and writers to grow their communities in the Web3 space.

3. Ecosystem highlights  

NEARWEEK is the one-stop-shop for all NEAR related news. Each weekly newsletter and edition is made possible via news contributions from the NEARWEEK community to the NEWS DAO. Subscribe or visit NEARWEEK.com to get your weekly dose of news from the NEARverse!

For the month of October we invite you to read through the following newsletters : 

Newsletter 78 

Newsletter 79 

Newsletter 80

Newsletter 81 

If you are interested in getting funded : 

• explore the NEAR Funding  linktree
• visit NF’s website : /
• contact NF Grants : grants.@near.foundation 

The post NEAR Foundation Funding Team Report: October 2022  appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

You can find the quarterly reports here.

You can find monthly reports on funding here.  

This week, the Foundation is focusing on the state of staking in the NEAR ecosystem. 

The state of staking, as of Friday 18th November 2022

At the time of writing, there is 469 million NEAR staked, which equates to approximately 42% of the total supply, or 56.5% of circulating supply. 

The staking total is spread across 131 validators, which is up on last month’s total validator number of 126, a four percent increase in the decentralization of the network. 

The seat price – the amount of NEAR required to be eligible for staking has fallen precipitously. From 100,000 NEAR in October to just 20,000 NEAR in November, this means securing the network has become more accessible than ever before. The Foundation expects the number of validators to grow significantly to approximately 300 by the end of this year, as NEAR Foundation starts to delegate to Stake Wars winning participants.

This will continue as the protocol deploys its roadmap. In 2023, for example, the number of validators will continue to climb to a maximum of 400. You can read more about the road map here. 

Staking Distribution 

Of the 131 validators, eight validators hold 33% of the total staked balance, representing 154 million $NEAR. A total of 15 validators, hold 50% of the total staked balance, and 116 validators hold the other 50% of the total NEAR available. A stake of 33% is the stake that can halt the network, according to Pikespeak. 

To improve decentralisation, the Foundation, along with the ecosystem is continuing to improve the breadth and depth of the validators, and actively encourages stakeholders to delegate to validators outside the top 15. 

Why are validators important? 

The NEAR network is decentralized, meaning that multiple people collaborate in order to keep it safe. We call such people validators.

In order to make sure that all the transactions in the network are valid, i.e. that nobody is trying to steal money, the validators follow a specific consensus mechanism.

Currently, there are a few well-known consensus mechanisms to keep a blockchain working correctly and resistant to attacks. NEAR Protocol uses a version of Proof-of-Stake, particularly Thresholded Proof of Stake.

In Proof-of-Stake, users show support to specific network validators by delegating NEAR tokens to them. This process is known as staking. The main idea is that, if a validator has a large amount of tokens delegated is because the community trusts them.

Validators have two main jobs. The first is to validate and execute transactions, aggregating them in the blocks that form the blockchain. Their second job is to oversee other validators, making sure no one produces an invalid block or creates an alternative chain (eg. with the goal of creating a double spend).

If a validator is caught misbehaving, then they get “slashed”, meaning that their stake (or part of it) is burned.

In the NEAR networks, an attempt to manipulate the chain would mean taking control over the majority of the validators at once, so that the malicious activity won’t be flagged. However, this would require putting a huge sum of capital at risk, since an unsuccessful attack would mean slashing your staked tokens.

Why is decentralization important? 

Staking is not only about the rewards, it is the basis for security and stability of the NEAR Protocol. To avoid centralization, split your stake between smaller staking pools instead of putting everything in the largest one.

Community members like Zavodil Validator have created excellent alternatives to NEAR’s official explorer, embedding metadata from the active staking pools to help you choose which Validators to Stake with. Also, consider joining the #staking channel on https://near.chat and ask questions!

These reports will be published each week, and cover different aspects of the ecosystem. 

The post NEAR Transparency Report: the State of Staking appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

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. 

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.
  • Key projects: Armored Kingdom, SWEAT, Endlesss, Niche, playEmber, eFuse

• 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 hello@near.foundation.

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!

The post NEAR Foundation Transparency Report  appeared first on NEAR Protocol.