Key takeaways:
- Ethereum Layer-1 competitor Near Protocol has raised $350 million in its latest funding round
- The new nine-figure capital injection comes roughly three months after the company raised $150 million in the previous financing round
- Near’s DeFi ecosystem has seen substantial growth in the last month, growing by over 130% to more than $1.1 billion
Near Protocol raises $350 million to compete with Ethereum
Near Protocol has collected $350 million in a financing round led by prominent hedge fund Tiger Global and a number of notable VCs, including Dragonfly Capital, FTX Ventures, and Hashed, the company said on Wednesday.
The news of the nine-figure fundraise comes less than three months after the company raised $150 million from leading cryptocurrency investors, including Three Arrows Capital and a16z.
Near Protocol is one of the fastest-growing decentralized application platforms. According to data from blockchain analytics firm DeFi Llama, the total amount of digital assets locked in the Near Protocol ecosystem increased by 139% in the last month to $1.1 billion.
Much of the growth can be attributed to Near’s massive $800 million ecosystem fund, which was launched last year with the intention of bringing new developers and decentralized projects to the rapidly growing Layer-1 network.
Near Protocol looks to capitalize on Ethereum’s high gas fees and slow transaction times, which can be attributed to a high degree of network congestion. As opposed to Ethereum, which uses an outdated and energy-intensive Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, Near Protocol employs up to 99% more efficient Proof-of-Stake (PoS) algorithm.
The price of Near Protocol’s native digital asset NEAR remained relatively unaffected by the news of the massive capital injection. At press time, NEAR is changing hands at $15.45, down a little more than 1% for the day.
