The Cypherpunk Guild -a group of advocates for the use of cryptography to enhance privacy and self-sovereignty- is pleased to announce an open application for funding projects related to Future of Privacy DeFi Infrastructure on NEAR Protocol.
DeFi is currently one of the most well-funded market segments, and as the demand for DeFi applications grows, so does the need to guarantee users’ privacy and safety in order to secure scalability.
The Cypherpunk Guild is then looking to fund projects aiming at implementing privacy solutions and strong protection mechanisms for DeFi that will help DeFi’s smooth ascent. Examples of such projects might include privacy related solutions encompassing:
– Distributed financial infrastructure *
– Prediction Markets
– Identity and KYC
– General Marketplaces
– Derivatives
– Insurance
– Lending
– Asset Tokenization
– Stablecoins
– Exchanges
Grant Amounts: Each project is awarded up to 20k $NEAR
Requirements for Applicants:
Projects should have:
Complete documentation and roadmap (or a well planned development timeline)
Aa clear and well thought-out product architecture
The Cypherpunk Guild- a group of advocates for the use of cryptography to enhance privacy and self-sovereignty- is pleased to announce an open application for funding projects related to the Future of Privacy for Sputnik DAOs on NEAR Protocol.
DAOs are emerging in the crypto space as a new form of on-chain governance that allows for decentralised and democratic management of organisations. Sputnik DAO has already launched on NEAR Protocol with V2 fast approaching! Since DAOs are run according to member consensus, privacy is essential in order to guarantee an environment free of corruption and pressure for the people engaging in voting, proposal resolutions, and funds allocations.
The Cypherpunk Guild is looking to fund projects that enhance the privacy solutions for Sputnik DAOs, empower its users, and strengthen the processes of on-chain governance on NEAR Protocol.
Grant Amounts: Each project is awarded up to 20k $NEAR
Requirements for Applicants:
Projects should have:
– Complete documentation and roadmap (or a well planned development timeline)
– A clear and well thought-out product architecture
The 4NTs research team recently began a series of events dedicated to the future of the Open-Web and crypto. The second live stream about the future of corporate governance in the Open Web era featured blockchain expert and business transformation leader Yei Sung Kim. Yei has worked for many years in Accenture and Oliver Wayman as a senior manager and principal respectively.
During our discussion, Yei shared her experiences working as a consultant for big corporations and gave us a clear picture of the challenges and reservations that big corporations display towards DLT solutions.
https://youtu.be/XUO_KyhzyAo
DLT’s Advantages are Clear But there is Still Skepticism around it
In the past few years, DLT adoptions have been rapidly growing across industries and that hasn’t gone unnoticed by big corporations. Most of the big companies currently rely on outdated, cumbersome, and expensive methods to deal with data and transactions, they could thus greatly benefit from the adoption of DLT. Nonetheless, they are confronted with particular challenges and worries that prevent them from keeping up with technological innovation:
“What I’ve heard the sentiment a lot from our clients is that they love the idea of the efficiency, the transparency it brings. And bringing traditional players that usually do not trust each other into a single source of truth. But the sentiment that I do hear a lot is that they are waiting for a leader or the gorilla in the room in the industry to take it on first and then they would like to be a follower to see what the adoption was like, what was some of the pitfalls, what were some of the successes, and what’s the infrastructure they can follow. So, some of these giant corporations, one of my clients is even an oil and gas supermajor, they said they wouldn’t even be a fast follower in the space, they would be a slow follower in the space. Getting traditional players who are competitors or who are even working with other parties who might be competitors with each other and having them use a single source of truth without figuring out the actual owner of the data and who gets to manipulate these data that’s been a big hurdle that I’ve seen so far”.
Because of their hierarchical structure and outdated decision-making processes, big corporations are not likely to swiftly adopt DLT solutions even though they can help improving the efficiency of their operations. Organizational restructuring has both financial and emotional cost which is what prevents most of them from changing and embracing new technologies.
Another issue hindering DLT adoption is the lack of a clear understanding of what this technology is and how that can benefit them:
“A lot of times hear blockchain and the sexiness behind Bitcoin and now you have NFTs so how do you explain this technology that supports Bitcoin which is another kind of currency but isn’t ruled by a governmental entity, how do you explain how this technology also works in other areas, environments, spheres?”
A lot of corporations are often so entrenched in old ways of functioning/workingthat they struggle to keep up with the innovations around them. Their old patterns are hard to change even when the benefits and rewards for the investment are almost banally obvious, that means until some other big company shows how profitable change is.
Good Use Cases Will Lead to DLT Adoption
The blooming of good use cases will lead to faster adoption and there are encouraging trends:
“I’m hoping that Elon Musk and Tesla because he has so much Bitcoin right now and he’s going to accept Bitcoin for purchasing Tesla. […] But I think that these big magnitude, high publicity kind of cases will make it more acceptable. But you also need to think that if you are a disruptor, there are a lot of cool advantages behind Bitcoin, you are kind of off the grid a little bit. You don’t have to worry about the government, and how does it transfer from bank to bank. It’s real-time, it’s a really fast transaction, but we are still operating in a world in which corporations still need to pay taxes. How do you regulate this? How do you make sure that if you do accept Bitcoin will the US treasury have to take Bitcoin as a currency when you pay your taxes? There are all these interesting implications behind it”.
As it happens with all technologies, good use cases for private-public partnership will drive a certain product mainstream since they will help to emphasise their value and reassure them of their potential to boost businesses. Along with the increase in adoption will arise legal questions, but there are good reasons to believe that governments will not try to get into the way of economic growth in a period characterised by stagnation.
Big Corporations Need People that Understand Data
Companies are confronted with a lack of talent and knowledge that hinders the fast development of tailored solutions for their businesses. There is a shortage of blockchain developers and data scientists, and that creates a lot of costs and uncertainty:
“There is a greater importance on having data-savvy people and then not only that, it’s the human + machine equation because we’ve seen so much misinformation because the algorithm AI tends to amplify certain voices, so how do we call the biases and use the human side, the empathy side and making sure that we are not inadvertently making ourselves more biases decision making entity as well? So, bringing that merge between people that understand data to the business implications, to the human and customer implications as well”.
It might still take several years for big companies to tap into the potential of DLT, partly because of a lack of successful use-cases, mainstream adoption, and lack of knowledge and regulations. But as companies such as Tesla help making crypto more popular a favourable environment will spontaneously arise.
Creating high-quality fashion products in the blockchain space is not the most straightforward job if you are coming from the fashion industry. Yet Frederik Hansson’s innovative vision has brought him to the blockchain community – and NEAR Protocol specifically – to marry his passion for fashion with technology.
As a life-long fashion enthusiast and entrepreneur, Frederik’s story began at the early age of 12 when he became intrigued by fashion and street culture, in the early versions of sneakers. Originally from a small town in the countryside of Denmark, fashion broke Frederik out of his bubble, and introduced him to a cosmopolitan world of design and creativity.
“Basically I come from a small town in the countryside of Denmark. It is a super small country with below 6 million people, a honey pot fairy tale country where we found the recipe of the perfect life and solutions. But it also strangles creativity and progress.”
Back during Frederik’s childhood, the internet was still in its infancy and streetwear media did not exist. While today we know what to expect on the shelves of a store based upon its website or online catalogue, Frederik lived at a time when he had to hunt for special products from certain regions of the world, or times of the year. He remembers google translating Japanese websites to find a specific rebrand of a product, or travelling all the way from Denmark to New York to buy a specific item in the early 2000s. Fashion was a business built around quality, scarcity, and creativity. Before ecommerce, you had to dig.
While Frederik was looking for ways to enter the fashion industry in Denmark, the ethos of streetwear was rising in the US. Kids there were all about a new sub-genre that capitalized on comfort but also culture and hip-hop music to inspire identity inclusion.
Throughout his teens Frederik started working in a clothing store, as a way of learning more about the industry and discovering emerging fashion trends. Although the job was less exciting at the time – counting and stocking items, managing inventory – it was an early entrance into the fashion scene.
In the following years during business school, Frederik cut his teeth as an entrepreneur by managing a number of different side hustles: He worked at a sales service, got admitted to the business gymnasium, switched to a slightly bigger store and finally got into a fashion design school in Copenhagen. All of this was to pave his way into the Fashion Industry.
While studying business, Frederik did multiple internships and worked at some of the best contemporary clothing stores in Copenhagen. His network was quite small back then but his entrepreneurial motivation and the success of his parents in establishing their own business, made him believe that hard work pays off.
“I was lucky to have a direction and a pathway from an early age. I come from parents who have built their own company as well, so I have always had great role models around me. I have had that upbringing mentality that you have to work hard for something you want. And if you treat people nicely, they will pay you back in some way – even if it is not all at once.”
And it did. Today a lot of Frederik’s connections in Copenhagen are like-minded frontrunners in the industry that are also digitally forward thinking. Frederik has also worked his way into a highly influential position helping introduce Scandinavian brands to the industry, and bringing the industry to Denmark:
He collaborates with all of the big fashion weeks including really big institutional players. He works and collaborates with key industry players such as danish B2B sales platform Traede, and JOOR, the biggest B2B sales platform in the world that partners with ‘the big fish’ like Calvin Klein, Jimmy Choo and Isabel Marant. Both platforms take care of the product management of 1500-2000 brands. In Frederik’s entrepreneurial eyes, the fact that they are not working with anything in the crypto-verse yet is a huge window of opportunity.
Back in 2011-2012, the Copenhagen Fashion Week, was only ramping up (today it’s one of the leading and most sustainable fashion events in the Nordics). Inspired by the ambition of bringing the industry onto a new level of sustainability, Frederik worked with a number of Scandinavian menswear brands including Samsøe Samsøe, Soulland, Norse Projects, Libertine-Libertine and doing consultancy for brands such as Levi’s and Axel Arigato through the last 10 years. In taking these brands into the mainstream fashion world, Frederik grew into a key executive position for managing Fashion Trade Shows in Copenhagen with partner projects and events in Florence, Paris and Milan. These various experiences made him an expert in different aspects of the Fashion industry.
“I am kind of a generalist in fashion. I haven’t launched my own brand, but worked in 10 different startups and dealt with more than 500 different brands. I have seen when it works and when it is doesn’t. There are a lot of different ways of making it in the fashion business right now.”
For the last 2 years Frederik has worked as the Director Of Operations & Concept at Revolver Copenhagen Int. Fashion Trade Show. Revolver is a unique order-platform for both mens- and women’s wear that represents the most progressive contemporary fashion brands from Scandinavia and beyond. Being an entrepreneurial creative, Frederik enjoys taking up a diverse range of responsibilities in his current position, including creating new concepts, pushing forward sales, negotiating new collaborations, and working on digital developments.
Interestingly, Revolver is already trying to impact fashion on the aspect of sustainability by using blockchain technology: Working with SBP, a Milan-based traceability company, Revolver is piloting the early stages of putting the entire value chain of a fashion company on the blockchain. To increase transparency, demonstrate product authenticity, and eventually evoke a sense of scarcity, the idea is for all consumers to be able to see how sustainable the company is by following the development of its product from fabric to final form.
In addition to sustainability, Frederik has also expressed concern about the authenticity of specific fashion products. It is no surprise that counterfeit fashion products are an enormous industry (approx. $1.7 trillion per year according to Forbes), specifically as it relates to luxury goods, and special limited items. In fact, counterfeit production is one of the most profound bottlenecks for many brands with international audiences.
In such a multibillion dollar industry, Frederik sees huge potential for integrating the crypto technology stack with real-world products, to pioneer a new paradigm of ownership, scarcity, and product transparency:
“You need a broad proofing system that takes all of the brands in and plugs it into all of the platforms. In effect we need to make a validating system that would get a company with high demand when the product goes live, like Supreme onboarded to digitally launch new products along with their physical goods. Today their drops are so anticipated – so imagine if every time Supreme made a product they minted an NFT as proof that it was a real product. This would allow you to create this comprehensive validating system that a lot of these reselling platforms like StockX and Grailed need. You can get around a lot of the problems of counterfeiting with a system like this. It’s a real solution to a huge problem in the fashion industry.”
In short, to prove authenticity of a specific product, one might also mint an NFT every time a company releases a new unique product.
Discovering NEAR, in this context, was the final piece of the puzzle: Swagger DAO is launching as the next chapter in Frederik’s journey, and as one of the most well-connected and cutting-edge projects at the intersection of fashion and technology.
From digitizing fashion to accept crypto payments, to tracking product materials, to creating a new fashion economy built around scarcity and NFT’s, to solving the problem of counterfeiting, Frederik Hanssen hopes to bring the fashion industry into the future on NEAR Protocol.
OIN Finance recently announced grant support from the NEAR Foundation to natively build and launch OINDAO on NEAR Protocol. As a home for stable coin issuance, and a scalable platform for grounding the next-generation of DeFi applications, OIN is well-positioned to grow into the fast emerging crypto-verse on NEAR Protocol and support the rapid development of Open Financial applications!
Introducing OIN Finance:
On a macro level, OIN Finance provides the NEAR Ecosystem with the opportunity to optimize the flow of assets and value into and between projects. Value from one Altcoin can be collateralized and issued in the form of a stablecoin, for use in another application.
OIN Finance has been built to accelerate the advent of DeFi (decentralized finance). As a platform, it consists of two key products that allow existing altcoins to ‘plug into’ the world of stablecoins, derivatives and token swaps, for use across applications on NEAR and any other L1 Chain bridged with NEAR.
OINDAO, the first core product of OIN Finance, is described as a “A stablecoin and staking derivatives issuance platform. Different from MakerDAO, OINDAO is specially designed for Altcoins.”
In parallel, OIN Swap is the second product of OIN Finance that is currently being built. It is described as “A stablecoin decentralized exchange for the staking derivatives on OINDAO and other stablecoins.”
Together, these two products provide a fundamental base-layer for allowing any existing altcoin to integrate itself with the emerging world of DeFi tools and products. Unlike existing solutions such as MakerDAO, that control which projects can participate in the issuance of stablecoins, the collateralization of assets, and the swapping of tokens, OIN Finance puts accessibility first:
“MakerDAO, and other DeFi platforms like Compound, also act as gatekeepers in electing which projects are selected to become part of their pools, thereby establishing a large barrier of entry for the majority of projects. OIN is able to solve this problem and build a greater DeFi ecosystem, centered upon inclusion and permissionless engagement.”
OINDAO on NEAR: What Does It Mean?
OINDAO is going to officially launch as a native NEAR Solution. That means, first and foremost, that NEAR will be able to be used as collateral for a ‘native NEAR-backed’ stable coin. As the OIN Team explains:
“A stablecoin provides an excellent method to park money during trading, or to use as a base currency. A NEAR-backed Stablecoin acts as the base currency in the NEAR ecosystem, helping the NEAR community to hedge against volatility.”
Beyond $NEAR, OIN Finance is built to integrate any existing altcoin onto the platform – meaning any other token in the NEAR Ecosystem can also be collateralized to issue their own stable coin. Once issued, these stablecoins can be used for the full suite of opportunities offered by the world of DeFi:
“They will also be able to utilize the stablecoins for ecosystem-specific utilities, as leverage to buy more tokens, or even to swap for other stablecoins such as USDC and DAI.”
As DeFi and open finance continue to mature, unlocking and maximizing the flow of value between dapps and protocols is a crucial requirement for supporting a thriving ecosystem of open financial applications. OIN Finance, with its two core products will support and expedite the future development of DeFi on NEAR Protocol.
There are two notable long-term benefits that OIN Finance brings to NEAR. The first relates to driving scarcity around the $NEAR Token, while the second has to do with unlocking new value across projects on the protocol:
Driving $NEAR Scarcity:
First, in virtue of using NEAR as collateral for a native-NEAR stablecoin that can then be utilized across DeFi projects in the ecosystem, more NEAR can be locked up over time as more stablecoins are required for different applications. As OIN explains:
“With more ecosystem-specific utilities behind a NEAR-backed stablecoin, more NEAR-backed stablecoins can be minted. The increasing amount of locked liquidity drives the price of NEAR up, creating a closed value loop for NEAR’s token economy.”
Hence, in the long-term, a $NEAR collateralized stable coin will create positive network effects and feedback loops for $NEAR as more projects launch in the ecosystem and more stablecoins are required for participating in different applications.
Unlocking and Streamlining Value on NEAR Protocol:
Second, OINDAO is built to support ‘basket-yield farming’ of projects bridged to, or on top of NEAR Protocol. This means that a user can stake NEAR on OINDAO, and yield up to 20 different tokens. The smart contract executes this operation independently, thereby allowing a single user to stake one time, and simultaneously yield from many different projects. As OIN explains:
“OINDAO’s smart contract supports multi-coin farming functionality for up to 20 different tokens. This support will create synergy between tokens on or bridged to NEAR protocol, providing a linkage between projects in the NEAR ecosystem. This means users who stake NEAR will have the opportunity to farm 20 different projects’ tokens in the NEAR ecosystem.”
A Financial Revolution on NEAR Protocol:
OIN Finance is a huge step in the advent of a financial revolution, a global infrastructure inversion and the launch of an open-financial ecosystem on NEAR Protocol. With stablecoin issuance of any altcoin on NEAR, and built in functionality and services embedded on a smart contract level, value has the capacity to flow more efficiently between applications on NEAR, while also increasing scarcity in the underlying locked asset. Ultimately, OINDAO’s launch on NEAR helps expedite the development of a new world of inclusive and accessible finance.
For more information about OIN Finance check out their telegram or follow them on twitter. For more documentation on OIN Finance see:
The 4NTs research team recently began a series of events dedicated to the future of the Open-Web and crypto. The first live stream featured John Karanja, founder of BitHub Africa and Whive Protocol, an award-winning protocol for innovation in the youth and gender sector. John has been involved in the African crypto space for the past seven years. His work focuses on tackling concrete issues such as energy access, dissemination of blockchain solutions and professional skill-building.
During an hour-long talk, John has given an insightful account of the evolution of Defi and crypto in Africa as well as a clear picture of the opportunities that the continent has to offer.
Africa: The Silicon Valley of the Future?
There is a growing awareness among investors and entrepreneurs that Africa presents a huge potential for becoming the crypto hub of the future. Human capital, resources, coupled with the desire for economic development and lack of financial structures are some of the ingredients that make the African continent particularly suited for a swift adoption of DLT solutions. African people are confronted with a lack of basic infrastructures and have a huge need for new solutions able to provide financial inclusion, access to opportunities and education, electricity and more. It is no surprise then that Bitcoin’s adoption is rising across the continent and that solutions like M-Pesa saw a rapid acceptance:
“What makes the African continent unique is that there is a huge need. We have people living in rural areas, they leave their mothers and grandmothers behind and their cousins behind and they come to the cities to look for work. And the people back home in their villages need access to money because they are not financially included, so what MPesa did was allowing people for the first time to send money digitally through a network. I remember I used to send money to the village I put money in an envelope, gave it to my cousin, and then my cousin removed a few notes and gave the money to my grandmother. We had something called cousin tax. Now with MPesa, that problem was solved you could send money directly. The problem with MPesa is that is not really scalable beyond the Kenyan border, yet at the same time we have this problem in other parts of Africa that are sort of lagging behind, so, this is where we see bitcoin and cryptocurrencies picking up slack of what physical money cannot do” – John Karanja
The African continent has a population of 1.2 billion people, 60% of it being below 25 years of age and in dire need to access things that other people around the world already have access to. This is a huge market to tap into:
“If you ask me what’s going to happen in the next 5 years, is we are entering a place where industries worth billions of dollars will be entering Africa and reach the lives of African people, making them wealthier and a seat on the table and trade with their fellow counterparts in Europe, in China, in the US, and the rest of the world. We have a lot to offer we have a rich and vast culture that has not been tapped into, in terms of innovation that can come from that […] there are huge market opportunities here but we need people to begin to realise the need to invest in education and we need partners to come in and create value that we can all share instead of the old extractive model in which Africa is just seen as a place where you get resources and then you leave” – John Karanja
For a long time Africa has been at the outskirts of technological development, however, the African population is showing to be much more receptive to the potential of crypto and is growing more eager by the day to further experiment with it to satisfy its necessities and fill their infrastructural gaps. These trends made entrepreneurs of the calibre of Charles Hoskinson identify Africa as the most promising economic environment in the next ten years (Charles Hoskinson, 2021). And it is precisely in these early days that investors and interpreters should not hesitate to jump into a venture that will give them access to a market worth trillions.
Uniting the African Continent Through the Open Web
To take advantage of Africa’s full market potential, Africans need to pull countries together and figure out solutions to boost cooperation. Cryptocurrencies are already allowing for an increase in international trading, however, more solutions need to be built to address other impairments to collaboration:
“One huge challenge we have here is the language barrier [..]. A lot of the problems we have here are the same in Katanga in Congo, Mali, which is access to resources that these countries have in abundance. We now need to create open communities using the Open Web where we have people that can translate content and share this content with each other” – John Karanja
The development of the Open Web will be critical to facilitate the exchange of information and cooperation. For that, scalable and user-friendly applications need to be created to stir engagement:
“The barrier remains a problem at the user interface or the user experience level. When we talk about payments and transactions you now have global monetary networks like bitcoin, you now have platforms that allow global CPU mining, we have protocols where people can build web solutions like for example the NEAR Protocol. These protocols have a common language which is digital. The digital problem has been solved […] so now we need to build applications where I can be able to translate what somebody is saying in a certain language to another language layered on top of blockchain technology. And I think when people begin to see those technologies including governments they will begin to appreciate the power of blockchain as one of the technologies that can unite the African continent and connect it intercontinentally. For me, it’s just a user experience issue where you create interoperability using applications”. – John Karanja
The necessary structures and tools to facilitate interactions and cooperation still need to be put in place. In this regard, there are plenty of opportunities for developers to unleash their creativity to build something useful and accessible.
Education and Cooperation are Key to the Open Web’s Success in Africa
The Open Web is still in its early days, and for it to succeed people will need to understand what it is and the opportunities that it offers:
“For the Open Web to succeed we do not only need innovation, but we also need education, training, and investment in youth potential. Africa is a very young continent, 60% of the people are under the age of 25 so that’s a huge resource we need to tap into to see these technologies get adopted”
– John Karanja
Investment in educational programs and training will be essential to the fast adoption of DLT and economic growth. To contribute to that John has created Melanin Academy, a project aiming to train 2000 engineers in the next 4 years. More educational programs and training have been launched in the past years but more investment is definitely needed to speed up change.
Having been involved in the African crypto scene since the very early days, John has witnessed its rapid evolution and also shortcomings:
“Today because of our effort the community is so huge that we now have what we call silos, we have people who are exclusive on one platform, some are exclusive on Bitcoin, others on Ethereum etc…What we need to do now is to interconnect these communities because we are not fighting each other we are trying to solve these huge problems which are access to opportunities, access to resources using blockchain technology. Now that we have grown we need to identify real problems and then collaborate because collaboration is key. We do not want to have a situation where different groups are trying to do the same thing while we could work through synergy to become more cost-efficient and successful”
– John Karanja
The advancement of crypto has given rise to different entrenched cultures that are at times more focused on surpassing each other than in keeping building meaningful projects for the community. Collaboration and exchanges among different platforms, however, is what is going to determine their value and success in the long haul.
The Rainbow Bridge is a fully permissionless and decentralized bridge connecting the NEAR and Ethereum blockchains.
Rainbow Bridge Specs and Features:
– Fully Decentralized and Permissionless: Anyone, Anytime, Any Asset.
– 1000 x Cheaper Gas Fees On NEAR Than Currently On Ethereum
– Any existing ERC20, ERC721, or NEP-21 token
– Maintain COMPLETE Custody of your assets as you move them between networks
– Ref.finance = A NEAR Community Built AMM is now LIVE
Fee Comparisons: NEAR & Ethereum
For NEAR Developers: Access all current assets (ERC20, ERC721, ERC998) and decentralized financial products existing on Ethereum, on NEAR.
For Ethereum Developers: Easily migrate to NEAR if gas fees remain unfeasible, while maintaining your Ethereum-native user base.
It’s All On NEAR Protocol:
Stablecoins. USDT (Tether), DAI, and TUSD
Wrapped. WBTC and WETH
DEX tokens. UNI and 1INCH
Lending tokens. AAVE and COMP
Service company tokens. HT (Huobi) and CRO (Crypto.com)
“The Rainbow Bridge allows developers to utilize Ethereum assets and smart contracts on NEAR—a fast, scalable, and low-cost environment. The Bridge has the power to accelerate community development as it allows ETH users immediate access to apps built on NEAR.” – Alex Skidanov, Co-Founder of NEAR Protocol
The NEAR – Ethereum Rainbow Bridge recently launched, led by NEAR Team Lead Dr. Alex Shevchenko. While the bridge providers seamless interoperability between assets and contracts on NEAR and Ethereum respectively, it also signifies a larger shift in the crypto space:
(1) DeFi takes a step towards becoming more affordable,
(2) A new landscape in crypto has emerged for Layer 2 protocols looking to build across Layer 1 chains,
(3) A precedent is set for building open and permissionless bridges between all L1 chains in the future.
Breaking down these three points reveals that the successful launch of the Rainbow Bridge, coupled with the impending launch of the NEAR EVM has the potential to dramatically and permanently alter the landscape of crypto.
Affordable DeFi + Ref.Finance Launches!
The first point that cannot be emphasized enough, is that the Bridge creates a channel for projects to migrate assets onto NEAR so as to make them more affordable to transact and utilize. nDAI (NEAR DAI) is thus capable of being used on Flux Protocol, with minimal transaction costs (especially as compared to Ethereum).
With the launch of ONLY the Rainbow bridge, assets on Ethereum can migrate across to NEAR to be utilized in Native NEAR solutions like Flux or Octopus Network. This is the basis for powering a native NEAR community AMM known as Ref.Finance. In the early days of interoperability between NEAR and ETH this AMM will allow for the exchange of assets and wrapped NEAR assets on NEAR protocol.
With the launch of Aurora and the NEAR EVM, affordable DeFi will become a reality for all of crypto. As Dr. Alex Shevchenko explains in detail, any existing Ethereum DeFi project will be able to scalably migrate over to NEAR in an afternoon, and instantly enjoy low transaction costs and fast network speeds for their native ETH products. This equally applies to NFT’s from NEAR going onto ETH marketplaces, as well as visa-versa.
All in all, this signifies a new era for scalability in the crypto-verse. For the first time, dozens of Dapps on Ethereum that have struggled to scale and grow due to high gas fees, now have a simple, cost-effective, and user-friendly alternative: NEAR Protocol.
Development of Crypto Across Chains
An important second implication of the launch of the Rainbow Bridge is the significance it holds for current and existing Layer 2 solutions built on Ethereum. Perhaps the best example of this phenomenon is with the DEX Aggregator 1inch Exchange: 1inch building its aggregator and AMM across Layer 1 chains: Ethereum, NEAR, Binance Smart Chain, and Tron. More details are explained below by 1inch Co-Founder Sergej Kunz:
1inch is a new project — launched in late 2019 — that is familiar with the rapidly changing crypto environment. The trend that 1inch embraces – of working across Layer 1 Protocols – is a trend that the Rainbow Bridge will help accelerate into the future. In short, the future of Layer 2 Protocols are going to be across chains.
Note: This makes the usability facet of NEAR, including its unique account model, especially unique.
A New Bridge Precedent: The Future is Permissionless and Interoperable
Third and finally, the launch of the Rainbow Bridge is something that should be understood as the start of a trend: Bridging between Layer 1s in a truly permissionless and open fashion. While the NEAR team itself has not commented on any future plans to build further decentralized and permissionless bridges between L1 networks, it would only make sense to replicate the existing bridge development strategy with different ecosystems. Connecting L1 ecosystems in a permissionless and decentralized manner provides (1) a basis for creating positive network effects between protocols, (2) reducing transaction costs, (3) streamlining products and services, and (4) expanding access to different users.
About eight months ago, NEAR Protocol launched its mainnet to a small community of token holders, and a number of reputable VCs — a16z, Pantera, Electric Capital, Dragonfly Capital, Coinbase Ventures. Since then it has largely flown under the radar for most of crypto in spite of exceptional fundamentals and a strong focus on user-experience.
A New Phase For NEAR Has Arrived:
Feels like @NEARProtocol is one yield farm away from taking off — interesting to see the infra puzzle pieces come together over the past few months.
With the launch of the Rainbow Bridge, Open Market Protocol Flux and Pulse, Decentralized exchange Ref.Finance, as well as the upcoming launch of the NEAR EVM and Mintbase on NEAR, NEAR is entering a new phase. Now before you make an instant comparison to another L1 and everything that L1 has going for it, consider the following characteristics that NEAR is positioned to dominate within crypto:
Scalability
NEAR is going to be able to scalably handle Ethereum and NEAR applications at affordable rates and with quick transaction speeds with streamlined storage and predictable fees. Once the EVM is launched, NEAR becomes a proper ‘World of dApps Protocol’ that will not only handle congested DeFi dApps on ETH, but also future Open Web solutions relating to Gaming, NFTs, Social Tokens, and the next wave of decentralized finance.
12/ The Rainbow Bridge is also about more than just Ethereum. It is a general purpose protocol where 80% of the work for integrating other chains is done. You might see integrations coming soon with #celo#dot#sol or any other chain where a dev group wants to build an adapter.
— Erik Trautman | erik.near (@ErikTrautman) April 6, 2021
The Multi-chain Interoperability of the Future
The Rainbow Bridge was the first product that utilizes Rainbow Protocol. Rainbow Protocol provides 80% of the needed infrastructure for replicating the rainbow bridge with other L1 Chains, such as Cosmos and Polkadot. This means, effectively, that NEAR is actually building fully permissionless and decentralized bridges to a network of other protocols. In the game of castles, that means that while other L1s might have bridges to 1 or 2 other protocols (and bridges that are not permissionless or decentralized at that), NEAR will be the hub for interoperability.
“Derivatives might go to a chain that specializes in that. NFTs might go to a chain that specializes in that. Interchain operability will be a big thing. Where assets can be indexed and referenced, even if they are remote – to a particular chain. Bitcoin had no knowledge of other chains. And nowadays chains do have knowledge of other chains.“
With the blossoming Sputnik DAO infrastructure on NEAR, NEAR’s focus on interoperability is extremely encouraging for streamlining the next generation of on-chain, community governed organizations that can call contracts and move assets between a universe of chains.
Remember everything about how community and DAOs are the future of crypto? Well NEAR is building a world of dApps that will be the hub of a universe of chains. It’s happening on NEAR – Yes both, the World of dApps and the Universe of Chains.
User Experience and the NEAR Account Model
Jumping off from these two points above, we can add the final knock-out punch with the NEAR account model. SO many projects in crypto today are entirely inaccessible for most non-crypto people. There are too many new processes, transfers, and addresses that have to be made, a process that is messy and not user-friendly. NEAR is built from the ground up to fix that problem. That is what the NEAR Account model does so well that other projects either have to try to build into their protocol at a later point, or simply ignore it altogether and limit their scope to crypto-natives. NEAR will scale to entirely new users – the next generation of gamers, existing Fintech, artists, creators, you name it.
NEAR is Future Proof:
14/ Now, #NEAR is the center of the growing multi-chain data and finance economies while remaining the best place to launch a consumer-facing app because of UX, low fees and high scalability. It is also now the most future-proof place to build b/c of that backwards compatibility.
— Erik Trautman | erik.near (@ErikTrautman) April 6, 2021
Why does being future proof matter? Because the tempo of innovation into the future is increasing extremely quickly. Existing projects today should enjoy the moment, but anyone interested in the future of the space needs to be asking themselves about the future in an honest manner.
How will interoperability across chains roll out in the coming years? Will that be decentralized and permissionless? Will it have to be?
How will crypto appeal to the masses or those looking for alternatives to the existing system? Is friendly UX and easy onboarding a means of accelerating that process?
What type of governance structure will not only be streamlined on a single Layer 1, but also across Layer 1s? How does community-based governance play out in the coming years, with existing infrastructure and silos?
3/ With the Rainbow bridge Ethereum and NEAR become fully interoperable. Devs who build on NEAR have access to all the assets on Ethereum, and developers who build on Ethereum can move performance or gas-fee critical parts to NEAR while keeping their Ethereum-native user base.
The launch of the Rainbow Bridge is a monumental accomplishment for the NEAR Team, and a first step towards a future of interoperable and cross-chain innovation. But that is only the beginning. With the launch of the Rainbow Bridge – and the impending launch of the NEAR EVM – a host of applications will start to move onto NEAR Protocol. From DeFi, to NFTs, to Social Tokens, to entire Layer 2 solutions, NEAR is a low-cost, user-friendly solution for projects looking to scale and grow.
The task for the NEAR Community is to take the value proposition of the Rainbow Bridge far and wide – across the crypto-verse – so that everyone wishing to run a blockchain based application without enormous gas fees can do so on NEAR.
Rainbow Bridge Spotlight: Spread the Word Far and Wide
To mobilize the NEAR Community, a special spotlight has been created in NEAR’s Open Web Sandbox. A 20% bonus is added onto ALL activities relating to Rainbow Bridge materials, content, social media engagements, and designs.
Now is the time to join the NEAR Ecosystem and promote the Rainbow Bridge. The Ecosystem is young. The opportunities are plentiful. There is a clear need for community members committed to the vision and mission of NEAR Protocol.
Jump into the Sandbox and start spreading the word about the Rainbow Bridge today to earn 20% more on your NEAR Rewards!
