A New Stage in NEAR Ecosystem Decentralization

As the NEAR ecosystem continues its journey towards full decentralization, the IC invites experienced infrastructure vendors, whether already within or new to the NEAR ecosystem, to participate in maintaining and enhancing essential services. This initiative not only ensures that critical infrastructure remains operational, but also opens up funding opportunities for providers who can bring innovative solutions and cost-effective strategies to the table.

Available RFPs:

1. NEAR Lake Maintenance and Development: Oversee the continued operation and improvement of NEAR Lake, the data availability layer crucial for developers and applications.
2. Kit Wallet API Support: Manage and enhance the API services that power Kit Wallet, facilitating seamless transactions and user interactions.
3. BigQuery Data Services: Maintain and optimize the BigQuery datasets, enabling efficient data analysis and insights for developers and stakeholders.
4. NEAR.org RPC Services: Ensure the reliability and performance of the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) services vital for communication between clients and the NEAR blockchain.

Note: The first three RFPs are interconnected, as Kit Wallet API and BigQuery depend on NEAR Lake. Providers are encouraged to consider bidding on these together to ensure seamless integration and service continuity.

Access all RFPs and submission details on the NEAR Infrastructure Committee Portal.

Why This Matters

• For NEAR Ecosystem: Maintaining critical infrastructure is essential for the NEAR network’s reliability and growth. This initiative ensures that these services remain uninterrupted and continue to support the ecosystem effectively.
• For Infrastructure Providers: An open bidding process offers a fair opportunity to secure funding and contribute significantly to NEAR infrastructure, leveraging your expertise to drive innovation.
• For Developers and Users: A robust and decentralized infrastructure means better performance, reliability, and new opportunities for engagement within the NEAR ecosystem.

About the Infrastructure Committee and the Proposal Process

The NEAR Infrastructure Committee is committed to transparency and decentralization in funding. The proposal process is conducted openly through the IC’s on-chain portal, ensuring fair evaluation and selection of candidates. Here’s how it works:

1. Submission: Interested providers submit their proposals via the IC’s on-chain portal. Applications will be open for a two-week period starting September 24 and ending on October 8.
2. Evaluation: The IC reviews proposals based on technical expertise, proposed budgets, and cost-reduction strategies aligned with current usage statistics. Evaluations will be completed within one week after the submission period ends.
3. Selection: Successful candidates will be awarded contracts to manage and develop critical infrastructure components.

Please note: The IC expects vendors to propose reasonable budgets rather than posting expected budgets up front. It is up to the infrastructure partners to calculate funding based on usage and pricing. Accurate pricing will help determine viable candidates. While the committee  may have potential providers in mind, this is an open bidding process that will fairly consider all qualified applicants.

Stay Connected and Informed

For updates and more information about the Infrastructure Committee and the RFP process, explore the following resources:

• Pagoda Wind-Down and Spin-Out: Ecosystem Update
• Future of Pagoda Services: Read More
• About the Infrastructure Committee: NEAR Blog
• NEAR Infrastructure Committee Portal: Proposals and RFPs

Call to Action: Make a Bid

If you are an infrastructure provider with the expertise to manage and enhance critical NEAR services, the IC encourages you to review the RFPs and submit your proposal. This is your opportunity to contribute to the future of decentralized infrastructure on NEAR.

Submit your proposal today via the NEAR Infrastructure Committee Portal.

Help the IC spread the word! Share this announcement with any stakeholders or organizations that might be interested in this opportunity.

The post RFPs Now Open to Maintain Critical Infrastructure on NEAR appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

How Chain Signatures Work

Chain signatures introduce threshold signatures for any blockchain, controlled by NEAR accounts & smart contracts. A NEAR account, which can also be a smart contract thanks to the NEAR account model, can request that the NEAR validators or MPC nodes sign an arbitrary payload, which could be a transaction for some other blockchain, and get a signed payload back to then send to the destination chain.

This is made possible by building an account-based decentralized Multi-Party Computation (MPC) network, allowing NEAR accounts to control multiple addresses on various chains and ensuring that the users are the only ones who can request signatures for transactions. Chain Signatures uses an account-based pattern, as opposed to a deposit-based or bridge-based pattern, as most other MPC networks currently in production do. The Chain Signatures MPC network functions as a decentralized signer for NEAR accounts and smart contracts, managing requests to addresses on different blockchains while placing zero burden on the user to manage these.

The first of its kind, Chain Signatures is a major advancement in DeFi adoption by enhancing cross chain interoperability and unlocking a new variety of use cases for mainstream users and Web3 builders. Chain signatures makes it easier to build DeFi products for particular chains and assets (while utilizing assets from other chains e.g. USDC/T, SOL, etc). For example, users can use XRP as collateral to borrow USDC, or trade DOGE for SOL. The launch of Chain Signatures delivers an elevated user experience that simplifies the transaction process while increasing accessibility to liquidity on non-smart contract chains such as Bitcoin, DogeCoin, XRP Ledger, and more. This also means that Chain Signatures let app developers serve all ecosystems at once from one interface rather than having to commit to a single chain or pool of liquidity.

The Chain Signatures MPC network is launching with Eigenlayer as a key partner and will be secured by Eigenlayer ETH restakers and NEAR stakers. The initial operator set is a trust-minimized network of ten node providers, which includes some top Eigen AVS infrastructure providers, using a Proof of Authority security model at launch. The future state is a permissionless network of node operators based on staking requirements and slashing conditions, planned to roll out in the coming months.  

Multichain Gas Relayer

Launching alongside Chain Signatures is the Multichain Gas Relayer, which removes the need to have the native gas token of another chain in order to transact. This is a big hurdle for users today, often requiring purchasing multiple tokens on exchanges and sending them to different accounts just to complete a single cross-chain action. Now, with the Multichain Gas Relayer, users can just use NEAR or NEP-141 tokens to cover gas on any chain, not just NEAR or EVM chains.

This unlocks true multichain account abstraction. Whereas cross-chain bridges vary significantly depending on which assets are bridging to which chains, chain signatures makes transacting on smart contract and non-smart contract chains possible from a single account or interface, while simultaneously unlocking liquidity that wouldn’t have been accessible before.

For a longer technical deep dive on Chain Signatures and the Multichain Gas Relayer, see this post from February 2024 about NEAR account aggregation technologies. 

New Web3 Design Patterns with Chain Signatures

Chain Signatures unlocks a range of powerful new use cases for application builders and DeFi developers while also enabling much simpler user interfaces across different contexts. Smart contracts on NEAR will be able to custody assets on any chain (since they can sign transactions on any chain via chain signatures), and maintain user balances similar to how single chain lending protocols or DEXs do now. For example, a user will be able to atomically swap their BTC in a Bitcoin account for another user’s ETH in an Ethereum account. This works because they can first deposit into accounts on these respective chains that are fully controlled by a NEAR smart contract, which will then settle the trade and allow the user’s to withdraw their “new” assets post-trade.

• DeFi on non-smart contract chains: NEAR smart contracts can sign transactions for non-smart contract chains like Bitcoin, Celestia, Bittensor, XRP Ledger, and others. This enables DEXs, lending protocols, and other DeFi apps to be built using the native assets of these chains, unlocking previously inaccessible liquidity. 

• Bridgeless cross-chain DeFi: Since NEAR smart contracts can custody assets on any chain, users can build truly cross chain applications such as RFQs, orderbooks, AMMs, lending protocols, and more. It is also possible to build swaps and other apps without bridges and message passing layers, meaning that new chains and assets can be added at launch. Additionally, chain signatures can be used to build two-way bridges to non-smart contract chains, using NEAR as the intermediate chain.
  
• Multichain Account Abstraction: A single NEAR account can manage any number of accounts on any number of chains. This means users can get ERC 4337-like functionality (natively supported by NEAR) without deploying any new smart contracts (so they can use non-EVM and non-smart contract chains), or needing to update their accounts on each individual chain. Chain Signatures also enables users to pay for gas costs on various chains with USDC, including non-EVM chains.
  
• Instantly multichain apps at launch: Thanks to Chain Signatures and the Multichain Gas Relayer, app developers don’t need to commit to a single chain when they start building––now, they can make many chains accessible to their users immediately after launching and dramatically increase their addressable market of users. 

Advancing the Chain Abstraction Vision

Chain Signatures advances the NEAR ecosystem’s vision of Chain Abstraction, or the idea that Web3 hurdles should be abstracted away from user interfaces for the sake of simplicity and accessibility. Many of these hurdles arise with multichain use cases as users need to deal with long lists of accounts on different chains, manually move assets between them, and manage all the related security. Now, with Chain Signatures, users can simply create and secure one account and then start transacting on any network in Web3. Chain Signatures also help dapp developers deliver better multichain experiences to their users and get access to all available liquidity across blockchains.

As Illia noted, “Since day one, the NEAR ecosystem has focused on simplifying access to Web3 for developers and mainstream users. Chain Signatures is the next step in that journey, making it significantly easier to transact on any blockchain while also defragmenting liquidity across the ecosystem. This will enable the next generation of truly decentralized apps to deliver much more powerful experiences and address the entire market of Web3 users.”

Live Use Cases In the Ecosystem

Several projects in the NEAR ecosystem are already building with Chain Signatures to introduce new design patterns and experiences to users. More information on the node provider ecosystem as well as news about additional projects building with Chain Signatures across Web3 is coming in the next few weeks.

• SWEAT Economy, a top ten most used decentralized app (dApp), utilizes Multichain Gas Relayer to let users send transactions from NEAR to BNB chain and pay for the gas in SWEAT tokens earned in-app.
• East Blue, a Bitcoin Layer 2, uses NEAR Chain Signatures to develop Bitcoin DeFi use cases that were not possible until now, providing a new way to extend Bitcoin with smart contract logic. 
• LiNEAR is building a multichain, multi-asset restaking framework on top of Eigenlayer, enabling non-ETH assets including NEAR to be restaked and used for securing applications.
• Mintbase, an NFT infrastructure platform, enables NEAR-based Mintbase wallet holders to purchase Ethereum NFTs directly.

Start Building with Chain Signatures

Chain Signatures makes possible a range of new use cases for Web3 developers and users alike, opening up an exciting new design space and expanding the landscape of multichain apps and experiences utilizing Chain Abstraction. 

Builders and developers interested in getting started with Chain Signatures can visit the documentation or explore code examples and begin building today. Projects looking for support implementing Chain Signatures can register their interest here.

The post Chain Signatures Launch to Enable Transactions on Any Blockchain from a NEAR Account appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

Here’s a rundown of sessions that are a must-see.

Developer track: build better on NEAR

NEAR: The Open Web Stack 

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosuhin reveals game-changing updates for the NEAR ecosystem. A lot of new and exciting NEAR products and tools are in the works for developers. So, if you’re a dev, you won’t want to miss this talk from Illia. 

Why Build Web3 Games 

Hosted by PlayEmber’s Hugo Furneaux, this panel dissects the massive potential of gaming on the open web. Learn about player-owned economies and why you should consider NEAR for your next gaming project. An essential session for forward-thinking game developers.

Unlocking NEAR Data 

Data extraction got you puzzled? Pavel Kudinov, senior engineering manager at NEAR, will walk you through using SQL queries on NEAR BigQuery Datasets and the NEAR Query API to build and analyze. This is the toolkit you’ve been waiting for.

Inside the BUILD Incubator 

Will Russell, Michael Yu, and Max Mizzi from student hackathon league Major League Hacking take a deep dive into the BUILD Incubator Fellowship. Hear firsthand experiences and gather invaluable insights that could jump-start your open web development journey.

Entrepreneurial track: jumpstart your journey

Building Web3 Communities 

This panel brings together experts from community building collective KryptoSeoul, decentralized identity project Galxe, NEAR DevHub, and Web incubator CryptoOracle Collective to discuss the art of fostering a vibrant, diverse community around any project.

CryptoEconomics 101 

Lisa Jy Tan, CEO of tokenomics consulting firm Economics Design, dives into the world of cryptoeconomics, helping you understand the fundamentals and real-world applications of economic principles, drivers, and incentives at play in the open web.

Hiring Smart in Web3 

Hiring in the open web is both exciting and fraught with potential landmines. Dan Eskow, founder of specialized Web3 talent agency Up Top, will share valuable tips on sourcing top talent, effective company branding, and red flags to look out for during the interview process.

Funding Trends in Web3 

A frontline perspective on open web investment from venture capital firms Accomplice VC, a_capital, RockawayX, and Generative Ventures. The expert VC panel will offer insights into funding trends and standout pitch decks to help founders stay ahead of the curve.

Creative track: redefining art, marketing, and gaming

Asia’s Impact on Web3 Gaming 

This panel explores Asia’s key role in Web3 gaming, particularly Korea’s leadership in the space. Hear from Jay Hoonjai Lee, CEO of Vortex Gaming DAO, and NEAR Korea Hub’s general manager Scott Lee on what the entire blockchain gaming space can learn from Asia.

Marketing in the Open Web 

Learn how decentralization and the open web is changing marketing and branding from Lex B., co-founder of NEAR Studio, a creative agency dedicated to the NEAR ecosystem. Everything you need to know about marketing in the open web, including real-life case studies and successes.

Advertising in Web3 

Anjali Young from Collab.Land, an innovative project helping implement token-gated communities, discusses how Web3 is transforming the advertising landscape, allowing for more effective brand-customer engagement and immediate feedback.

The Power of NFTs 

Explore how NFTs are driving decentralized creativity, redefining loyalty, and reshaping cultural norms. Hear from the likes of Wilson Lee, co-founder of blockchain-based carnival app TheFunPass™, and Stipe Plejic, CEO of social NFT marketplace Endemic.

NEARCON ‘23: get in on the action

If you’re passionate about the transformative power of the open web, NEARCON ’23 is a can’t-miss conference. We’ve carefully curated speaker tracks and sessions to fuel your imagination and skills, whether you’re a developer, entrepreneur, or creative mind. And the policy-minded need not fret, there’s a special Regulatory Track chock full of insights about evolving legal frameworks, governance, and more. 

With NEAR’s unique approach — super cheap, super fast, super secure — you’ll discover how the open web is solving real-world problems today.

So why wait? Register for NEARCON ’23 now to secure your spot!

Special offers are available for Ukrainians, students in Spain and Portugal, and hackathon registrants. Head over to those pages and register for your free NEARCON ‘23 pass!

The post NEARCON ’23: Developer, Founder, and Creative Talks You Shouldn’t Miss appeared first on NEAR Protocol.

“We are excited to join forces with Nansen to offer our developer community even more valuable insights,” says Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation. “This partnership enables us to enhance our ecosystem and bring advanced analytics tools and data-driven insights to the forefront of the Web3 movement, ultimately accelerating the widespread adoption of decentralized applications.”

Nansen gives users access to billions of on-chain data points

With Nansen’s analytics platform, developers, investors, and other users get a comprehensive view of blockchain activity. This includes transaction flows, wallet holdings, and on-chain activity. 

Nansen enables users to analyze billions of on-chain data points with over 250m+ wallet addresses across multiple blockchains, discover opportunities, perform due diligence, and defend their portfolios with real-time dashboards and alerts. The platform also provides users with a suite of tools for monitoring blockchain projects and tracking their performance.

Alex Svanevik, CEO of Nansen, said that the platform is excited to join NEAR Foundation in giving NEAR in expediting “the next chapter of Web3 and empower[ing] developers to craft even more robust dApps.” 

“We’re proud to have led this partnership — our commitment to enabling future Web3 creators is reflected in everything we do, and we are excited to unlock that potential through the power of decentralization,” adds Ida Pandur, CEO of NEAR Balkans. “At the heart of our mission is a desire to empower individuals to create and innovate in a brand new way, and we are committed to continuing our efforts to make this vision a reality.”

As NEAR evolves into the Blockchain Operating System, a common layer for browsing and discovering open web experiences, compatible with all blockchains, this collaboration will help drive innovation on NEAR and onboard many new developers, investors, and end users into Web3. 

The post NEAR and Nansen Partner on On-Chain Analytics for Founders and Investors appeared first on NEAR Protocol.