What is Near Protocol and What are The Most Notable Coins in the NEAR Ecosystem?

By

Ethereum and Bitcoin have made their mark on the cryptocurrency world and although they may be at the top of the food chain right now, they still have a lot of problems that they need to address.

One of these projects that can solve these problems is the NEAR protocol. So let’s get started and find out what the NEAR ecosystem is all about.

What is the NEAR ecosystem?

NEAR Protocol is a decentralized application (dApp) platform that focuses a strong emphasis on the developer and user usability. Using sharding technology, NEAR is a Proof-of-Stake blockchain that is capable of scaling to a large number of users. The NEAR currencies, which are unique to the NEAR crypto platform, are used to pay for transaction fees and storage within the ecosystem.

Because of the decentralized structure of the Rainbow Bridge, it is capable of adapting to any future protocol upgrades that may be implemented. Read on for a more in-depth look at the architecture of the Rainbow Bridge, as well as the technical deep dive that follows.

The Potential of the NEAR Ecosystem

NEAR has a lot of potential from the get-go because it was made to solve these 3 major problems:

  • Scalability
  • Lack of interoperability
  • Security

Additionally, NEAR also solves other problems as well like improving transaction speed, making the ecosystem more desirable for newbies, and many more. 

Solving Ethereum’s Scalability Problem

Because of the high demand for Ethereum, scalability has proven to be a particularly difficult problem to solve. To address this difficulty of scalability, NEAR Protocol recommends sharding as a solution. Sharding is a network optimization technique that reduces the computational load on a network by dividing or partitioning it.

By not requiring each node to perform the entire network’s code but only the code that is relevant to its shard, this lightens the load for the network overall. This strategy allows for the execution of computation in parallel across shards boosting the network’s capacity as the number of nodes grows.

Impressive Network Speed and Low Gas Fees

The sharding consensus approach used by NEAR allows for the processing and completion of more than 100,000 transactions in less than a second. Although the transaction has an associated cost, it is so insignificant that it is barely worth mentioning. It is estimated that 0.0001 NEAR is utilized to process each of your transactions.

NEAR’s Rainbow Bridge

Blockchain bridges are essential for the development of the DeFi ecosystem. They make it possible for asset transfers and blockchain interoperability to occur. NEAR’s Rainbow Bridge lets users transfer digital assets from Ethereum.

The NEAR Rainbow Bridge is a blockchain connecting technology that is both trustless and permissionless. The bridge protocol eliminates the need to rely on anyone other than the security of the chains that are connected. Anyone can deploy a new bridge, use an existing bridge, or participate in the maintenance of an existing bridge without the need to acquire approval from anyone else first.

Using the Rainbow Bridge, any information that is cryptographically verifiable on NEAR may be used in Ethereum contracts, and vice versa – including the ability to access the state of the other chain and organize calls with callbacks on the other chain. 

NEAR’s Hidden Validators

NEAR employs Hidden Validators to provide an extra layer of security. Each shard has a smaller set of people that check each chunk when it is added to the system. Validators are distributed across each shard at an average of 100. 

The validators find out their assignment on their own, rather than placing it on the blockchain, where everyone can see it. They accomplish this by randomly pulling an array of shard IDs from a Verifiable Random Function (VRF).

The attacker would have to pay a large number of validators across all shards for their masks to be revealed in this manner, but they would be unable to corrupt the system in this manner.

Furthermore, the number of hidden validators that are allocated to a block is decided at random as is the size of the block. It follows from this that a malicious attacker will be unable to determine how many hidden validators they will actually need to corrupt in order to carry out their assault. 

To put it simply, hidden validators make it harder for attackers to do their jobs thus improving the security of transactions for NEAR.

User and Developer Friendly

NEAR Protocol’s community-building potential

One thing worth mentioning is that the NEAR protocol’s potential is high because it can create a large and friendly community. This is because NEAR Protocol is committed to providing a platform that is both user-friendly land developer-friendly at the same time. 

One of the most striking features of NEAR is that it uses human-readable account IDs rather than public-key hashes to identify users. As a result, the user experience is significantly improved because the user feels more at ease and the information is easier to recall. 

Plus it’s easier for beginners to get used to their NEAR accounts since it has a similar vibe to using social media accounts like Facebook or Twitter. 

NEAR is friendly to developers as well. NEAR’s developer-friendly capabilities streamline the process of researching, designing, developing, testing, and deploying your apps on NEAR. 

It supports Rust and AssemblyScript contracts, as well as Robust Tooling providing developers with a bundle of tools for efficiently developing, testing, and deploying applications in the platform.

Is NEAR Protocol Worth The Investment? 

As a platform, NEAR is very attractive to a lot of potential investors. It’s designed to solve a lot of the problems of its predecessors and it has a high potential for growth thanks to its user-friendly interface.

On the developer side NEAR is making some big moves to make its platform as attractive as possible. NEAR places an emphasis on teaching, giving tools and courses through the NEAR academy, awarding funds to onboard as many developers as possible, and advising projects that require assistance on how to use the applications that are being built on their system.

Aside from the things that NEAR brings to the table, its tokenomics are attractive for investors as well. 

The Value of NEAR Tokens 

One of the reasons why analysts believe NEAR is a good investment is because of the low overall availability. Another factor contributing to the bullish view for NEAR price forecasts is the token’s high utility value.

When compared to many other coins and tokens available on the market, NEAR is unique in that it is a multi-purpose, technologically advanced digital asset with a wide range of applications. As a result, blockchain experts agree that NEAR is a fantastic investment opportunity.

NEAR coins play an important part in the NEAR Protocol ecosystem, serving a variety of functions. In addition to data storage, transaction processing and validation, and network resource allocation, they are also in charge of network administration. 

It’s important to point out how immensely profitable the NEAR Protocol’s tokenomics are. Ninety percent of all coins minted each year are paid to validators, with the remaining ten percent retained by the project as operating expenses. Additionally, 70 percent of all NEAR transaction fees are burned to sustain a steadily increasing NEAR price over time.

The Most Notable Coins in The NEAR ecosystem

Aurora

Aurora is an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) developed by the NEAR Protocol team that enables developers to operate their apps on an Ethereum-compatible, scalable, and future-proof platform.  

Aurora is built on NEAR Protocol and takes advantage of the protocol’s numerous unique features. This includes features like sharding and low gas fees. 

The Aurora protocol is composed of two main components: 

  • The Aurora Bridge is based on Rainbow Bridge technology which allows for the permissionless transfer of tokens and data between Ethereum and Aurora.
  • The Aurora Engine runtime allows for the seamless deployment of Solidity and Vyper smart contracts

Is Aurora Worth The Investment?

Aurora and Near Protocol

Being built on the NEAR protocol is reason enough for a lot of people. With the introduction of NEAR’s new stake farming mechanism, ecosystem projects can engage with validators to incorporate stake farming into their incentive structure. This enables validators to share the rewards from NEAR staking with the projects in a proportional manner.

Aurora is the first project on NEAR to make use of this unique approach to validators. Users will be able to engage in this groundbreaking new approach for safeguarding NEAR and sustaining the ecosystem in the future. 

Aurora’s Plans in Various Industries

But aside from this Aurora is said to produce growth in several industries like the gaming industry, Artificial intelligence (AI), and the Internet of Things (IoT). 

The Aurora blockchain is growing and producing economic growth. Aurora’s investment in this business makes a great deal of sense because it is certain to result in long-term rewards for them.

Gaming Industry

Aurora plans to merge its blockchain technology into the gaming industry by incorporating in-game currency, game data, and game regulations into its platform. Anything and everything, including game devices and equipment, would be “tokenized,” with the tokens becoming tradable commodities in a free market.

Internet of Things

Aurora’s blockchain aspires to serve as the foundation of a future decentralized Internet of Things system that will benefit from transactions and collaboration amongst connected yet autonomous devices.

Artificial Intelligence

Using artificial intelligence, Aurora tries to strike a balance between data security and synergy by rejecting the concept of centralized networks, which have trouble providing quick communication between nodes while using distributed computing.

Aurora Tokenomics

Token Locking and Release Schedule

Aurora will have a  two-year unlocking schedule relative to its Token Generation Event (TGE) on November 18, 2021. Tokens will be unlocked via linear-vesting every 3 months with a 6 month cliff starting from the TGE date (After 6 months, 25 percent of the total is unlocked, with an additional 12.5 percent unlocked after 9, 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 months).

Source: https://aurora.dev/tokenomics 

Octopus Network

Octopus is a Web3.0 application chaining framework that allows you to connect many Web applications. The Octopus Network is designed to facilitate the building and operation of Web3.0 Substrate-based application-specific blockchains, which are known as app chains. It is the mission of the Octopus Network to spark the next wave of Web3.0 innovation.

By lowering the cost of bootstrapping a Web3.0 application in the form of a blockchain by two orders of magnitude, from several million dollars to less than one hundred thousand dollars. The network also brings a lot to the table by providing leased security, out-of-the-box interoperability, and interoperability.

Is Octopus Worth The Investment?

Octopus is designed to address basic issues faced by developers and blockchain project teams when developing Web 3.0 applications. Developing and building a blockchain from the ground up requires time, effort, and money. This is where the Octopus Network comes in by introducing appchains. 

An appchain is a self-contained blockchain that is used just for a subset of custom-built applications and is not compatible with other blockchains. Appchains, in contrast to decentralized apps (dApps), allow developers to customize the governance structure, economic design, and underlying consensus technique of their applications.

Octopus Network Tokenomics

Token Locking and Release Schedule
Source 

Conclusion

Hopefully, you’ve learned everything you needed to know about NEAR protocol and the projects built upon this revolutionary ecosystem. Feel free to comment down below and tell us your thoughts on whether or not NEAR is the future or it’s simply an overhyped project with a lot of promises. 

We hope this information will help you in your investment process, but this is not investment advice. Every investment carries risk, especially in this industry, so DYOR before making a decision.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Be the first to know about crypto news every day

Get crypto analysis, news and updates right to your inbox! Sign up here so you don't miss a single newsletter.