Ecosystem Update: Announcing Near One, Chain Abstraction Spinouts 

The NEAR Foundation announces today the formation of two new ecosystem nodes: Near One is spinning out of Pagoda and a Chain Abstraction team is launching with members from Pagoda and Proximity Labs. In line with the NEAR ecosystem’s commitment to decentralization, these teams are spinning out key initiatives that have reached sufficient maturity. They join earlier spinouts including Aurora, Calimero, DevHub, and most recently Nuffle Labs, in becoming independent companies. 

Spinouts of NEAR ecosystem initiatives allow teams to focus on their core competencies and move quickly and autonomously with clear and aligned incentives. Importantly, an open and decentralized ecosystem encourages transparency and gives everyone a fair chance to seek funding and support for their contributions. A decentralized ecosystem is also more antifragile and sustainable due to an ever-increasing number of collaborating and competing projects. 

Near One

The Pagoda team developing the core NEAR blockchain protocol is now Near One, a team of 30 employees led by Bowen Wang, Head of Protocol. Near One’s mandate is to develop and maintain the NEAR Protocol and roadmap, providing high-performance and scalable infrastructure to support the wide range of activities in the NEAR ecosystem, including consumer apps, Chain Abstraction, modularity, DeFi, and User-Owned AI. Working independently will allow Near One to operate with greater speed and autonomy, and also makes room for multiple node/protocol teams to build on NEAR without relying on an “official” one. Near One will share exciting news about the next phase of sharding later this month. 

Chain Abstraction Spinout

Following the successful launch of Chain Signatures mainnet, an independent team with key contributors from Pagoda and other nodes will focus on developing the technology and partnerships needed to make the Chain Abstraction vision a reality. This new team will continue the NEAR ecosystem’s leadership in advancing Chain Abstraction for all of Web3. More information and a name for this project are forthcoming in September, so stay tuned.

Future of Pagoda and Pagoda Services

Given that these two spinouts represent a large percentage of Pagoda’s current staff and responsibilities, the NEAR Foundation Council decided to change the model for funding the other ecosystem services Pagoda has been operating. These will now be distributed via the Infrastructure Committee to a decentralized set of providers over the next six months. For updates on Pagoda’s transition timeline and process, please consult this Future of Pagoda Services page.

These transitions mean that Pagoda will be winding down, with some Pagoda employees joining other ecosystem nodes including the NEAR Foundation, NEAR.AI, and DevHub teams. Remaining team members will be offered support to found new ecosystem projects, join other ecosystem teams, or bid as independent providers to take over existing work via an RFP process run by the Infrastructure Committee. People with strong knowledge of NEAR technologies are always encouraged to start new projects and seek funding support: this is the most transparent, fair, and sustainable approach for growing the ecosystem as it approaches 4 years since mainnet launch. 

NEAR ecosystem teams interested in hiring Pagoda team members are encouraged to share openings on the Jobs Board and to consult this opt-in list of people open to new roles. There will also be a hacker house-style Pagoda offsite in Tarrytown, New York in early September, now open to ecosystem contributors interested in connecting with team members and brainstorming independent projects (apply to attend here). 

Looking Ahead

In addition to the launch of Chain Signatures mainnet last week and the upcoming mainnet launch of Nightshade 2.0, the NEAR ecosystem has seen major recent success across a range of key metrics. Last month, in July 2024, the NEAR ecosystem had more than 20 million monthly active users across apps and projects––the highest on any L1 chain, with over 110 million accounts overall. NEAR also reached over 3 million daily active users, the highest of any chain, averaging between six and seven million transactions per day, and has the highest 12-month user retention among L1 blockchains. 

A more decentralized and autonomous ecosystem of independent projects will be better equipped to expand on this impressive growth and bring NEAR’s vision and best-in-class technology to a billion users. Those interested in keeping up with the latest news and launches on NEAR should follow along on X, attend monthly ecosystem Town Halls, watch NEAR AI Office Hours, and attend the [REDACTED] conference and hackathon in Bangkok, Nov. 9-11.