The NEAR protocol decentralized application (DApp) is launching a new blockchain operating system, focusing on improving the user experience on Web3 through a common layer for browsing and discovering open web resources, the company revealed at the Web3 and festival. of innovation ETHDenver 2023.
In an interview with Cointelegraph’s Turner Wright during the event, NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin spoke about how the ecosystem is getting closer to user needs and the launch of the Blockchain Operating System (BOS).
According to the NEAR team, the system works with any blockchain or Web2 backend, allowing users to have the experience of using a single application, even when switching between applications or chains. For developers, the solutions promise to offer decentralized and composable frontends, enabling forking of parts and components, and additions like payments, profiles, and notifications without the need for hosting.
Polosukhin noted about the blockchain operating system:
“iOS gives developers a place to showcase their app in front of billions of users, and it gives them all the underlying services and infrastructure to build on, so it just plugs in here. That’s what we’re trying to do. , trying to give the distro here, give the platform underneath, and let the developers build.”
The protocol, which is a competitor to Ethereum that offers smart contract capability and a proof-of-stake blockchain, sought 10x growth in key metrics last year, including the number of transactions, active monthly wallets, projects onboarded, developers, and money invested within the ecosystemsaid the co-founder.
“A lot of projects just migrated to NEAR,” Polosukhin noted of the growth of the past year, combined with an effort to find existing apps with a user base:
“They came to us, some of them because they saw that JavaScript smart contracts can be written. It’s like three times cheaper to hire developers. This is more useful not only for users, but also for developers.”
trigger background
Polosukhin is also one of the developers behind the Unchain Fund, a fundraising effort created last year to help Ukrainians affected by war. As of early 2023, the fund had raised more than $9 million in donations, almost entirely in crypto assets.
According to him, the funds raised were crucial in supporting the people of Ukraine in the first weeks of the war, while international aid was still on the march at a slower pace:
“Red Cross, Unicef, it takes months to put all their systems into operation when something happens, that’s how they are. They’re slow […] but when they arrive, they have the procedure, and they set it up, they build the supply chain, the logistics, and then they can start delivering. So, in a way, the crypto funds are covered at the beginning, like the activation time for similar government aid.”
Part of the funds raised were used for a program dedicated to runaway women with children, providing weekly payments of 25 euros to some 6,000 Ukrainian women. The funds were also used to purchase ambulances through the United24 global initiative.
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