State of Challenge:
Close to Protocol goals to resolve the blockchain trilemma (the idea that blockchains can’t be scalable, safe, and decentralized on the identical time) by implementing sharding. Due to this blockchain scaling characteristic, Close to Protocol permits the processing of as much as 100,000 transactions per second, decreasing transaction prices.
Close to Protocol operates on a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm.
The event of the protocol is coordinated by the non-profit Switzerland-based Close to Basis. The venture, nevertheless, is ruled by the neighborhood.
NEAR is the native cryptocurrency of Close to Protocol and comes with a number of totally different use circumstances. NEAR is used to safe the community, reward the stakeholders, and pay the transaction charges.
The Close to Protocol community creates 5% of latest tokens yearly.
The whole worth locked (TVL) on Close to Protocol is $160M on the time of writing.
Whitepaper
Full particulars on how Close to blockchain operates are introduced in in depth documentation.
Improvement Stage:
Close to’s mainnet was formally launched in October 2020.
Close to launched its Nightshade sharding mechanism in November 2021. This enables growing the protocol transaction throughput by 4 instances.
Rainbow Bridge, Close to’s bridge to the Ethereum community went stay in March 2021.
Ethereum scaling resolution Aurora was fully built-in into Close to’s blockchain in Might 2021. It later partnered with Consensys, opening a whole bunch of prospects for dApps on Ethereum to develop into appropriate with Close to Protocol blockchain.
Close to Protocol has two decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols constructed on its community, in line with DeFillama. There are quite a few DeFi dApps and protocols constructed and working on Close to’s blockchain, however their quantity will not be rising as quick in contrast with different layer-1 options.
Close to Protocol introduced $800 million in funding initiatives to assist ecosystem progress.
Grayscale named Close to protocol as a candidate foreign money for its new cryptocurrency belief.
Terra’s UST stablecoin was built-in with Close to Protocol over the last days of 2021.
Close to raised $150M to develop into a Web3 growth hub in January 2022.
Partnerships:
Partnership with Cardano for a cross-chain bridge between blockchains.
Partnership with The Graph that permits builders to make use of Graph applied sciences for growing purposes on Close to.
Close to Protocol has had one of many greatest enterprise capital corporations within the crypto house, DragonFly Capital, on its validator advisory board since January 2021.
The venture is backed by many enterprise capital corporations, together with Andreessen Horowitz, crypto, Pantera Capital, Coinbase Ventures, Elementary Labs, Coinfund, Blockchain.com Ventures, and Xpring.
Fundraising
Raised round $50 million round numerous token gross sales previous to launching mainnet in 2020.
