NEWSLETTER ISSUE #99

A weekly update on everything that moves NEAR Protocol
NO 99 · Wed 8 March, 2023

gm NEAR heads,

Hope you're all doing well!

What a week full of major NEAR-related announcements behind us! It was inspiring to see such a high presence of the NEAR community and its builders present at ETH Denver, and we hope that everyone who attended came also had a great time.

This week we wanted to pay special tribute the next major ecosystem DEX on NEAR—Veax!

Veax has raised $1.2M in pre-seed funding, which will be used to develop its platform and bring its DEX to market. This funding, together with the expertise of Tacans Labs and its backers, which include Proximity and Circle, place Veax in the prime position to deliver on its vision to disrupt the current DeFi space.

You can read our full overview of the latest promising DEX to launch on NEAR Protocol. Oh, and be sure to check-out the Veax testnet to secure yourself a portion of the 100,000 USD prize pool!

Don't forget to subscribe to the weekly newsletter to receive it directly in your inbox!

Till next week!

- Team NEARWEEK

NEARWEEK is aggregating and curating information across the NEAR ecosystem. This edition was curated by the community via 227 news contributions to the NEWS DAO.

Highlights

NEAR INTRODUCES BLOCKCHAIN OPERATION SYSTEM (BOS)
NEAR announced that it paving the way to become the Blockchain Operating System (BOS). The BOS is an industry-first category: a common layer for browsing and discovering open web experiences, compatible with any blockchain. The Blockchain Operating System will make Near the entry point for the Open Web. LINK

AURORA LAUNCHES AURORA CLOUD
Aurora Labs has launched a major turnkey blockchain Solution for businesses transitioning to Web3. Aurora Cloud is the all-in-one cloud infrastructure solution bridging Web2 and Web3. LINK

CALIMERO CONSOLE NOW PUBLICLY AVAILABLE
Calimero is a customisable side-chain built on top of NEAR protocol. It offers an ideal solution for businesses to access privacy features and enable scaling. The following guide will walk you through setting up your own private shard on Calimero Network and deploying a dapp. LINK

FINOA APPROVED FOR CRYPTO LICENSE IN GERMANY
Cryptocurrency custodian Finoa has received three license approvals from Germany's financial regulator BaFin, going against the wider grain of regulatory clampdowns and uncertaintity happening elsewhere in the crypto space. Moreover, the Berlin-based firm also closed a strategic venture round led by Middlegame Ventures. LINK

ARPIT SHARMA JOINS FOUNDATION AS MANAGING DIRECTOR WEB3 ADOPTION IN THE EAST
The Foundation has appointed Arpit Sharma as managing director for India, South East Asia, and the Middle East to help expand Near’s presence in those specific regions and beyond. Sharma brings regional expertise as well as leadership experience from the Polygon ecosystem. LINK

AWESOMENEAR : ECOSYSTEM LEADERS EXPLAINING NEAR PROJECTS LINK

DeFI

STADER x TONIC : PROJECT OVERVIEW LINK

HERE WALLET INTEGRATES SPIN AND TONIC
HERE Wallet has expanded its support to both Tonic DEX and Spin Finance in its ongoing integration within the NEAR ecosystem. LINK

META YIELD LAUNCHPAD : NEAR HUB
After winning the voting phase on Meta Yield Launchpad, NEAR Hub is making their project token, $ESTATE, available to the public for the first time. The ESTATE Token is a utility token that provides access to exclusive virtual experiences, events, and special perks within the NEAR Hub. LINK

SPIN STRATEGIES : AUTOMATED YIELD MACHINE NOW LIVE ON THE MAINNET LINK

AURORA HIGHLIGHTS : BASTION PROTOCOL
Bastion is a decentralised lending and borrowing protocol that joined the Aurora ecosystem in March 2022. The project is not just a lending and borrowing protocol, it heavily focuses on developing composability, tokenomics, algorithmic risk optimization, and UX. LINK

REF V2 DEEP DIVE : THE USER-FRIENDLY DEX ON NEAR
Ref Finance is a decentralised exchange (DEX) on NEAR that received a major upgrade. Ref v2 has features that rival Uniswap v3, including discretised liquidity that enables better rewards for LPs. LINK

DE.FI : INTRODUCING THE FIRST CRYPTO ANTIVIRUS TO AURORA
The inventor of Crypto’s First Antivirus, De.Fi, has fully integrated with Aurora, providing an additional layer of security for users of the blockchain. This includes the De.Fi Scanner, which offers users a vital solution to the security challenges posed by the DeFi ecosystem. LINK

Community and Guilds

NEARWEEK : AUDIO & PODCAST LIBRARY
A selection of project and community audio recordings that cover the NEAR, Aurora, and Octopus Network ecosystem and their respective developments. LINK

NEARWEEK : COMMUNITY CALENDAR [NEW]
NEARWEEK launches its custom community calendar to be used by the entire NEAR ecosystem! Please populate the calendar with project launch dates, NFT drops, and Twitter Spaces. This way users in the space are aware of everything that's scheduled to happen. LINK

NEARWEEK : MERCH STORE
Our NEAR ecosystem merch store is live - stack up your NEAR drip!! If you're a project and want your design featured in the store, please e-mail: shop@nearweek.com. LINK

NEARWEEK : NEWSBOT
The NEARWEEK Twitter newsbot offers the easiest way to ensure that any breaking NEAR Protocol-related news on your timeline is picked up by NEARWEEK.To send us a submission, simply comment or tweet:
< !submit @nearweekbot > — it's that simple!

Events

[2023-03-03] AURORA WEEKLY UPDATE
Read it here: LINK; or, give it a watch here: LINK

AURORA AT ETH DENVER
ETHDenver is upon us, and the Aurora community will be there to participate in a full slate of events featuring the most innovative projects of the Web3 industry. The Aurora team will bring to ETHDenver its own vision to achieve Web3 mass adoption and reveal its approach on delivering the most convenient blockchain experience. LINK

OCTOPUS NETWORK LAUNCHES TIKTOK CHALLENGE #2 LINK

Developers

/ BUILDER BULLETIN

The latest and most important news for developers in the NEAR ecosystem, curated by @devs.near.

NEAR SWIFT SDK LINK
SIGNMESSAGE API FOR WALLETSELECTOR LINK
TIP BUTTON LINK
NEAR WALLET SELECTOR UPGRADES TO v7.8.2 LINK
NEARCORE DOCS : ENGAGING AND EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION PRACTICES LINK
WIDGET OF THE WEEK : HACKGOVGIGS (WRITE-UP) LINK

NEAR HACKS VIDEO CONTENT : REF FINANCE WORKSHOP LINK

NEAR JS SDK 1.0 IS OUT! LINK

OCTOPUS NETWORK : EMPOWERING DEVELOPERS GLOBALLY
Thanks to its local partners and ambassador network, Octopus successfully completed courses in India, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Mexico, empowering developers in these regions to build on the network. LINK

NEP-364 : IMPROVEMENTS TO THE CALIMERO BRIDGE
Protocol version 59 update introduces NEP-364, which enables efficient signature verification as host functions. This improvement will reduce gas costs when verifying signatures, allowing more signatures to fit in a transaction on NEAR's light client contract. LINK

NEAR : STORING OFF-CHAIN DATA ON IPFS USING FILEBASE
Read to learn how to use Filebase for off-chain NEAR Protocol data storage on IPFS. By storing data on IPFS, it can be referenced via NEAR Protocol smart contracts using the file or folder’s IPFS CID value. LINK

NEAR DEV GOV REFFERAL PROGRAM
Are you a NEAR ecosystem outlet, an influencer, or a someone organizing NEAR Protocol events? You can be paid for referring people with ideas to DevGov DAO. LINK

Gaming

NEARWEEK x EL CAFE CARTEL : MERCH STORE
NEARWEEK has collaborated with Pablo DAO, a sub DAO of El Cafe Cartel, to create a mini-store featuring custom community-created merch. The store is now available on NEARWEEK's website. LINK

FEWANDFAR LISTS NFT MULTIVERSE GAME WEB3MON LINK

APOLLO42 x ROUTER PROTOCOL : STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
Apollo42 announces a strategic partnership with Router Protocol, a cross-blockchain infrastructure provider. The partnership will enable the users to buy and sell NFTs from any network and move NFTs from one blockcain to another. The partnership will also explore cross-chain NFT staking and governance. LINK

YOUMINTER MONTHLY REVIEW — FEBRUARY LINK

WORLD OF THE ABYSS : GLOBAL UPDATE (DEPLOYED ON MAINNET) LINK

Join The Ecosystem

NEAR WIKI
The open-source, collaborative wiki connects you to information about everything relating to the protocol, usage, infrastructure, opportunities, and guilds. LINK

FREECODECAMP : NEAR CURRICULUM
The curriculum will contain at least ten interactive practice projects that will guide you through learning the NEAR protocol and its tools. You'll learn how to build and deploy your own smart contracts, dApps, work with NEAR command line tools, and much more! LINK

LEARN NEAR CLUB: HOW TO USE & BUILD ON NEAR
An all inclusive hands-on onboarding platform to NEAR Protocol, connecting NEAR ecosystem projects to pro-active community members via (L)Earn method. Supported by NEAR Foundation. LINK

HOW TO BRIDGE ASSETS TO AND FROM NEAR (GUIDE)
Bridges help form the concept of interoperability between blockchains in Web3. In other words, bridges enable the exchange of information from one blockchain to another, even when coded in different languages. The following guide outlines some of the cross-chain bridging solutions that are available to those wanting to move assets to and from NEAR. LINK