In Brief:
- The NEAR Protocol launched an $800 million ecosystem development fund.
- NEAR is also actively looking for projects focused on NFTs, DAOs, and gaming
Ethereum competitor NEAR Protocol launched an $800 million ecosystem development fund. According to the announcement, the new funding includes $350 million in grants announced by Proximity Labs last week.
The funding aims to grow its decentralized finance capabilities and will give ecosystem developers incentive to create new product offerings on Near.
From the $800M fund, $100M will be allocated to Startup Grant Pools. Over 20 startups will be identified and given $5M each in funding. $250 million will be allocated to existing ecosystem projects to further develop and scale. And remaining $100M will be assigned to Regional Funds to foster the development of NEAR largest community regions in Asia, Europe, and the U.S.
The company had already spent $45M across over 120 projects. It includes Core Protocol Infrastructure Grants to the likes of Textile, Liquality, CronCat, Kurtosis, and the Grain Programming languages.
Also Read: Decentralized Exchange ZkLink Raises $8.5M In Funding Round
DeFi projects on NEAR have effectively hit a significant milestone of over $150M Total Value Locked (TVL). The company aims to develop that number rapidly and safely. Additionally, NEAR is effectively searching for projects highly focused on NFTs, DAOs, and gaming.
Later this year, NEAR will launch the next phase sharding, nicknamed Simple NightShade.
