The decentralized application (DApp) NEAR protocol is releasing a new blockchain operating system, focusing on improving user experience on Web3 through a common layer for browsing and discovering open web resources, the company disclosed at the Web3 and innovation festival ETHDenver 2023. In an interview with Cointelegraph's Turner Wright during the event, NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin spoke on how the ecosystem is moving closer to user's needs and the release of the Blockchain Operating System (BOS). According to the NEAR's team, the system works with any blockchain or Web2 backend, allowing users to have the experience of using a single …

Education is a well-known barrier to entry for many when it comes to crypto and Web3 space. This is particularly true when it comes to understanding the underlying technology that powers these new innovations. Joining in on the effort to spread crypto awareness, on Feb. 8, the New York University School of Professional Studies (NYU SPS) — one of the schools and colleges that compose New York University — announced a partnership with the NEAR Foundation to introduce a new “Web3 Learning Workshop” for students and faculty, along with partners in the industry. The course comes out of NYU SPS …

When I entered crypto, I succumbed to the contest between blockchain ecosystems, believing one had to be “better” than others. I have since realized the future of cryptocurrency is bringing with it a variety of platforms that will excel at different things. With the Inter-Blockchain Communication Protocol (IBC), I’ve left behind the days of thinking chains have to compete and embrace a connected interchain future. Let me explain. Solana, Polkadot, etc. — what do they have in common? They are individual state machines, each trying to achieve something only one has done before: create a sustainable, robust ecosystem of developers, …

Circle, the issuer of the United States dollar-pegged stablecoin USD Coin (USDC), has added support for Apple Pay — with the intention of bringing the crypto and traditional payment systems closer together. Circle made the announcement in a Nov. 15 blog post suggesting it may boost sales for crypto-native businesses as they can facilitate traditional payments from non-crypto-using customers while enabling customers to “buy crypto with Apple Pay on their preferred exchange.” According to Circle, the addition of Apple Pay support will benefit traditional businesses by allowing them “to shift more retail payments to digital currency.” Apple Pay is available …

Skyward finance, an IDO platform enabling fair token distribution for projects on the NEAR Protocol, has reportedly been exploited for 1.1M NEAR tokens, worth an estimated $3 million USD at time of publication. The news was shared on Twitter by Aurora Lab's community moderator Sanket Naikwadi, who stated that the exploit was first noticed by a member of the NEAR protocol community, who goes by the handle @Nearscout. The @skywardfinance was just exploited for ~1.1M $NEAR Tokens (Worth ~3M) . Thnx to @NearScout for noticing the treasury drain, he pinged me asking if something is wrong with skyward... then we …

Near Protocol’s in-house stablecoin, USN, recently became undercollateralized, forcing Near Foundation to recommend winding down USN to prevent a situation similar to the Terra (LUNA) and UST collapse. Supporting this move, the Near Foundation opened up a $40 million fund to protect investors and help them cash out of USN with equal amounts of wrapped Tether (USDT.e). On Oct. 24, Near Foundation revealed setting up a $40 million fund, allowing eligible USN holders to redeem their USN tokens on a 1:1 basis with USDT.e. The program was launched after Decentral Bank (DCB), the issuer of NEAR-native stablecoin USN, raised concerns …

NEAR Foundation has announced a new partnership between Google Cloud and NEAR Protocol, providing infrastructure to NEAR’s Web3 startup platform, Pagoda. According to an Oct. 4 announcement, this partnership will allow Google Cloud to provide “technical support” to NEAR grant recipients by providing infrastructure for NEAR’s Remote Procedure Call (RPC) node provider to Pagoda. Near Protocol is a decentralized application (DApp) platform that focuses on usability among developers and users. It uses sharding technology to achieve scalability and, as a competitor to Ethereum, is also smart-contract capable and a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain. Launched in Feb. 2022, Pagoda is a startup …

Cross-chain bridges have increasingly become targeted by malicious entities. However, not all hackers can run away with millions in their exploit attempts. Some end up losing money from their own wallets. In a Twitter thread, Alex Shevchenko, the CEO of Aurora Labs, told the story of a hacker who attempted to exploit the Rainbow Bridge but ended up losing 5 Ether (ETH), worth around $8,000 at the time of writing. According to Shevchenko, the hacker has presented a falsified NEAR block to the Rainbow Bridge contract and submitted the required 5 ETH safe deposit. Thinking that the team would be …

20 million JavaScript developers will now have the ability to write blockchain smart contracts and build applications on the NEAR Protocol, after rolling out JavaScript Software Development Kits (JS SDKs) on Monday. Speaking with Cointelegraph at the Korea Blockchain Week (KBW) on Aug. 9 (local time), NEAR founder Illia Polosukhin emphasized that the move will open up the niche field of blockchain development to a substantially broader audience: “There's about 20 million JavaScript developers in the world. Probably like every developer one way or another wrote JavaScript in their life. And what we allow you to do is to write …

For many layer 1 crypto projects, returning to normalcy from Terra’s death spiral meant a complete migration to a different ecosystem. But, how does one make the right move, especially after knowing the unfortunate fate of their initial platform of choice? In the case of Tracer, a Web3 fitness and lifestyle app, moving away from the Terra ecosystem for survival was just one piece of the puzzle. Choosing a new host to build on requires more than checking the technical compatibility with the blockchain ecosystems. As explained by Near Foundation’s Nicky Chalabi, projects like Tracer seek alignment with the ecosystem’s …

Pocket Network, a relay infrastructure middleware protocol, announced a service integration to improve the network bandwidth of NEAR blockchain while enabling faster deployment times for Web3 developers. According to Pocket Network, the latest integration with NEAR allows native developers to deploy their applications on other supported blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Fuse, Avalanche, Harmony and Polygon. In addition, by having integrations with multiple blockchains, NEAR developers can overcome concerns regarding single points of failure due to bottlenecks or other service disruptions. Pocket Network aims to accomplish 100% up-time for projects via a globally distributed network of over 47,000 full nodes that …

Aurora, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) designed to scale decentralized applications (DApps) built on the Near protocol, has launched a token fund worth $90 million. The fund was launched today in partnership with Proximity Labs and will be focused on financing decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on the Near protocol. Near Protocol is a DApp platform that focuses on usability among developers and users. As an emerging layer-1 competitor to Ethereum, Near Protocol is also smart-contract capable and runs a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. Funding was provided by Aurora Labs, which allocated 25 million AURORA tokens — currently valued at roughly …