• Comment: Many of these don't talk about NEAR at all or only mention it in passing Bluethricecreamman (talk) 15:17, 31 July 2024 (UTC)
  • Comment: Please make it clear if this is about NEAR, NEAR Protocol or NEAR Foundation. Attention is All You Need is not a reason for NEAR Protocol or anything this article is talking to be notable, it has to meet WP:GNG. Vanderwaalforces (talk) 18:30, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

NEAR Protocol
Company typeBlockchain
IndustryBlockchain Sector
FoundedInception date 2017
FoundersIllia Polosukhin, Alexander Skidanov
Websitehttps://near.org/
Footnotes / references
https://discovery-domain.org/papers/the-official-near-white-paper.pdf

NEAR Protocol is a layer one open source blockchain protocol that uses sharding technology to provide smart contract functionality, scalability and security as the network grows. Its native cryptocurrency is NEAR.

NEAR Protocol was launched in October 2020 by NEAR Foundation founded by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov..[1].

History

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Prior to NEAR protocol, one of the co-founders was employed at Google Research in 2017 working on the landmark research paper Attention Is All You need[2]. Eventually, the co-founder departed from Google Research to start Near.ai in 2017 which started out as an artificial intelligence endeavor and not as a blockchain technology. However, due to the founders being unable to pay programmers for their contributions towards enhancing Near.ai, the founders decided to turn to blockchain technology to resolve the payment problem by starting a blockchain protocol called NEAR Protocol in 2017[3].

NEAR Protocol was launched in October 2020[4].

According to NEAR Protocol's white paper[5], NEAR Protocol runs on sharding technology. This vastly lowers energy use due to its sharding technology[6]

In February 2022, NEAR Protocol assisted with raising millions of dollars through its blockchain technology to support Ukrainians that no longer had access to their bank accounts after Russia attacked the country[7]. In November 2022, after the FTX bankruptcy, NEAR Protocol's native currency (NEAR) suffered a significant market decline along with one of its initial venture capital firm contributors portfolio, Tiger Global[8]

In 2024 NEAR Protocol would begin working on interoperability, chain abstraction, and ai agents with respect to the blockchain while still retaining its initial goal of open source, scalability and security[9].

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "NEAR crypto has doubled in price in four weeks. Here's what you need to know about the hot new currency". Fortune. Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  2. ^ "Attention is All You Need". Google Research.
  3. ^ "Nvidia's Rise Surprises Even the Researchers Who Started AI Boom". Bloomberg.
  4. ^ "Sequoia and Silver Lake fund crypto infrastructure start-ups". Financial Times.
  5. ^ "The Near White Paper". NEAR.
  6. ^ Tabuchi, Hiroko (14 April 2021). "In Coinbase's Rise, a Reminder: Cryptocurrencies Use Lots of Energy". The New York Times. Retrieved April 25, 2021.
  7. ^ "How Ukrainians are fundraising in cryptocurrency". The Verge. 26 February 2022.
  8. ^ "More Losses For Tiger Global From Its FTX Investment". Forbes.
  9. ^ "AI pioneer Illia Polosukhin, one of Google's 'Transformer 8,' wants to democratize artificial intelligence". CNBC. Retrieved June 27, 2024.