What is Near Protocol?
Near Protocol is a third-generation blockchain protocol meticulously built to address the shortcomings of second-generation or first-generation-based platforms. Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov developed Near Protocol in 2017, it was initially developed by the name Near.AI, which was a machine-learning platform. This was made possible as, they learned about smart contracts and cryptocurrency during the initial stages, and that made them dive more into cryptography to conduct more studies. Finally, in 2020, the launch of Near Protocol happened, when the creators of Near Protocol realized that no existing blockchain protocol could match their needs and aspirations.
The creators of the Near Protocol desired to create a blockchain platform that would be highly scalable while reducing the costs of development to allow developers to launch their dApps. Near protocol functions over the Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism that undertakes numerous innovations such as its use of ‘Doomslug’ for block generation. Doomslug is built by a worldwide community of researchers, developers, and thinkers, who also participated in writing the initial code for the NEAR Protocol. Anyone can join the collectible to start contributing towards its development, as Near Protocol’s code is open source.
How Near Protocol works?
Near Protocol works as a base layer blockchain technology that serves as a foundation upon which other dApps can be built to be deployed. The massive throughput capacity of Near Protocol comes from the Nightshade, which it uses. To improve the overall transaction carrying capacity of the network, the individual set of validators are made to process transactions in parallel across multiple sharded chains.
Now, this is where there is a difference between Near Protocol and other blockchain platforms, as in Near Protocol each shard produces a fraction of the next block or chunk, and to finalize transactions these are processed and immutably stored. This offers developers a strong tool kit for building next-generation dApps and this simplifies the Near Protocol development.
Near Protocol’s contract-based account model lets advanced dApps can sign transactions on behalf of users, where dApps can execute agreements without the user needing to be physically available to confirm the action.
Near Protocol native token (NEAR)
Near Protocol has its native token like other blockchain protocols by the name of ‘NEAR’, which is used to power transactions, NEAR smart contracts, and also incentivize nodes. Near Protocol is a community-based platform that lets NEAR token holders participate in the on-chain governance of the NEAR platform and there is also an option of having a validator that votes on their behalf.
Near Protocol allows mining by solving calculations/puzzles and miners collect NEAR tokens as a reward for finishing “blocks” of verified transactions, which are supplementary. Near Protocol is authorized by governments of many countries and is completely safe to buy.
The Near Protocol team employs over 80 people, and Near Protocol raised $50 million in the first four months, as investors believe it has enormous potential to unleash.
Conclusion
The recent release of the name Rainbow Bridge by Near Protocol has turned the tables around, as reported by a senior blockchain developer at Rejolut. According to this new release of the Ethereum-to-NEAR bridge, users to bridge their Ethereum-based ERC-20 tokens for NEAR to use them within the Near’s dApps.
Next in stride is the support for the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which would let developers re-deploy their Ethereum dApps on NEAR by having minimum changes and that would eliminate the barrier even more. Despite the mainnnet of Near Protocol being launched recently, a large number of projects like Flux, Mintbase, and Paras are already being built on the platform and this recent update will only make the platform accessible for users.
