4NTS December Newsletter
Welcome to the 4NTS December Newsletter! December has been a month to remember in the crypto space, and also for the NEAR Ecosystem. In light of plenty of new content and new team members to the core NEAR Team, there have also been some important product updates relating to projects developing on NEAR at record speed. Let’s get started!
NEAR – Calm Before the Storm?
December was definitely less volatile of a month compared to October or November. This does not mean that things are not happening—there is a lot going on in the background. New batch of Open Web Collective application? Check. New projects being signed on to the ecosystem? Check. New hires? Check. Interesting price action on $NEAR that might tell us that something really intriguing is going on? Check. 2021 is going to be very exciting for NEAR. Are you ready?
NEAR Without the Noise Recap: What Comes Next?
December featured three episodes of NEAR Without the Noise from stellar people within the NEAR Ecosystem. In early December, Mildred and Chase from the Open Web Collective and OP Games respectively came on and shared their insight and experience from working with an up and coming Crypto Accelerator. 2 weeks later, Travis and Rob from Zed.run joined 4NTS Guild to discuss their innovative digital horse racing ecosystem, as well as the future of NFT’s. In late December, Rune Bentien – head of GooGuild and SharpDarts joined 4NTS Guild to talk about the state of crypto, the startup world, and the migration from Web2 to Web3. The full videos of Zed.Run and GooGuild can be found on Youtube.
What’s Next? In January NEAR Without the Noise will continue to expand into the NFT’s angle of the NEAR Ecosystem, as well as featuring some completely new perspectives on the investment opportunity behind the NEAR Ecosystem, as well as the growth of NEAR in China!
Guild Update – Education Guild Launches, Createbase Grants go Live, and Guilds Pioneer December Townhall!
Guilds are quickly becoming a fundamental component of the NEAR Ecosystem. In the month of December the Education Guild launched on NEAR for anyone interested in learning more about NEAR, Crypto, and Ecosystem Design! In parallel, Createbase launched its Grant Program for prospective artists and NFT enthusiasts alike interested in building a home for NFTs on NEAR. Finally, the NEAR Townhall for the month of December featured an exclusive Guild update on the status of Guilds around the NEAR Ecosystem. For a full overview of this update check out the video here.
Bonus: Students are prime candidates for recruitment into the Web3 space – Not only are most of them tech savvy and comfortable with the idea of decentralized products, but they also have time to learn crypto while they complete their studies! Check out a student’s perspective on the Crypto space through a member of 4NTS Guild.
Electric Capital Report on NEAR: The Numbers Speak For Itself
Electric Capital is an early stage crypto investment firm that recently released a report on the state of the crypto space and the different levels of development across different Ecosystems. The Research Update known as “Electric Capital Developer Report 2020” had a number of important insights into the state of NEAR protocol and its development in light of other L1 Ecosystems. The most notable ones?
NEAR is one of the fastest growing Layer 1 Ecosystems at the Two Year Mark After Polkadot and Ethereum
NEAR has 3 times the number of developers in Q3 of 2020, that they had at Q3 in 2019.
NEAR is within 20 Devs of Ethereum at the 2 Year Mark.
NEAR has increased their developer monthly average by 100%.
Paras Is Building on NEAR:
Paras is one of the newer projects that are currently building on NEAR. Paras is aiming to become a leading marketplace of digital cards, a cool concept that ties in with the surge of NFT-related startups.
Even though the idea is pretty niche, you can’t deny that it’s pretty damn cool. And besides that, digital ownership of art is becoming a trend nowadays. To learn more about NFT’s on NEAR check out A Home for NFT’s is Building on NEAR.
NEAR Protocol Hiring Surge – Names that Matter:
Last but not least, the month of December witnessed a hiring surge of NEAR team members: From a VP of Marketing Alexandra Tinsman, to new Community Team Leads, NEAR is clearly staffing up for a big 2021.
What We Are Reading and Watching:
Leadership in The Ownership Economy—Scaling Decision Making while Minimizing Securities Risk by Jesse Walden
Crypto Theses for 2021 by Messari
The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff.
Psychopolitics, Neoliberalism, and New Technologies of Power by Byung-Chul Han
Giancaspro, M. (2017). Is a ‘smart contract’ really a smart idea? Insights from a legal perspective. The Computer Law and Security Report, 33(6), 825-835.
Pentland, A., & Hardjono, T. (2019, November 23). Empowering Artists, Songwriters & Musicians in a Data Cooperative through Blockchains and Smart Contracts. ArXiv. arXiv.
Questions We’re Asking:
With Uniswap gaining in popularity and fees skyrocketing again, will NEAR be the perfect solution? How does 1inch fit into the picture?
What will the BTC bull run mean for us in the future?
Is DeFi actually the future of finance or a mere fad?
Is the digital art NFT surge a bubble or the start of a long term trend?
How long will it take retail investors to discover layer 1 alt coins?
What is the future of Ripple?
