NEAR Protocol

NEAR is a simple, scalable, and secure blockchain platform designed to provide the best possible experience for developers and users alike, which is necessary to bridge the gap to mainstream adoption of decentralized applications and the broader Web3 ecosystem. NEAR is completely carbon neutral as certified by South Pole.

Unlike other blockchains, the NEAR Protocol network has been built from the ground up to be the easiest in the world to adopt for both developers and their end-users while still providing the scalability necessary to serve those users.

Specifically, NEAR is designed to make it easier to:

Build decentralized applications-- whether you're a seasoned blockchain developer or only used to building with "traditional" web or app concepts, NEAR makes it easy to build the next generation of decentralized applications.

Onboard users with a smooth experience-- even if they have never used crypto, tokens, keys, wallets, or other blockchain artifacts.

Scale your application seamlessly-- the underlying platform automatically expands capacity via sharding without additional costs or effort on your part.

Gateways make locally-run, decentralized front-ends available to the masses. A gateway consists of a specially designed virtual machine that loads and runs frontends for protocols built on Ethereum, L2s, and other Layer 1s like NEAR. The code for these frontends is stored on the NEAR blockchain.

Examples of gateways include near.org, bos.gg, near.social, and Cantopia.

Components are frontends for app-layer protocols (think Lido, Uniswap, Aave) that are stored entirely on-chain. The code for these apps can be viewed in a gateway, similar to viewing a smart contract in Etherscan. Developers can fork these apps and deploy their own versions, or even compose Components together

Components can call functions on any blockchain, with current support for all EVM chains/L2s and NEAR. The source code for the apps (frontends) is on NEAR, due to its ability to very cheaply store HTML/CSS/JS (a few cents).

BOS aims to tackle several critical challenges around building front-ends for Web 3.0 apps, including access, security, composability, and agility. With BOS, users always have the abillity to locally run blockchain applications which helps assure robustness and censorship-resistance, while maintaining a user-friendly experience. The code for Components is always on-chain, making it auditable and viewable in explorers. This enhances security, and users can locally run the full stack with confidence. Furthermore, BOS fosters composability by enabling developers to reuse and remix Components. Building with BOS is extremely lightweight and easy, with the ability to deploy new front-ends for smart contracts on mainnet in less than 10 minutes. Additionally, BOS is chain-agnostic, making it a flexible solution for developers working with different blockchains.