Announcing a $10M Fund for Decentralized Orderbook Solutions on NEAR
By Proximity Labs, with Orderly Network, Spin, and Tonic
The last two weeks have been incredibly turbulent for the crypto space, both economically and psychologically. We extend our most profound empathy to everyone impacted or otherwise affected by the recent cataclysm. At Proximity, our mission to support builders and empower DeFi stands as firm as ever. Fortunately, Proximity had no direct exposure to Alameda/FTX, and we are currently well-positioned with multiple years of runway in stablecoins and digital assets. The same is true for the NEAR Foundation. We are more than capable and willing to aid DeFi teams that face an uncertain future due to recent events, so please do not hesitate to reach out to us.
As we watch the continued contagion in our community from the failure of yet another centralized finance entity, we are once again reminded that our mission to support and grow DeFi is both meaningful and necessary. The future of finance must be transparent and decentralized if similar failures are not to be repeated. To that end, we must make decentralized solutions as easy to use and powerful as their centralized counterparts.
At Proximity, we believe in the necessity of a robust and highly performant orderbook DEX economy for a decentralized future and that NEAR is the right place to realize such a vision. Written using Rust and WASM, NEAR has the highest throughput and lowest latency in DeFi, with a fast finality of 1–2 seconds and near-zero transaction costs. Furthermore, with scalability achieved through sharding, the Web 2-friendly account model, and a focus on onboarding with the JavaScript SDK or native meta-transactions, NEAR is well-equipped for the mass adoption of DeFi.
For this purpose, Proximity, together with Orderly Network, Spin, and Tonic, is launching a $10M fund dedicated to decentralized orderbook solutions on NEAR. The fund, which is to be derived from the participants’ treasuries, would be deployed in the form of grants or investments for DeFi protocols that leverage the central limit orderbook (CLOB) infrastructure provided by Orderly Network, Spin, or Tonic. Proximity will also provide advisory services and developer support from our team of industry experts and core NEAR contributors.
This $10M fund is an open invite for builders from any ecosystem to advance NEAR’s decentralized orderbook infrastructure to a level that will rival centralized exchanges. At the same time, it is an encouragement for all those building to keep going. If interested, please contact us via this form and build the decentralized orderbook economy with us.
Additionally, our usual investment efforts continue as normal; if you want to connect with Proximity about a DeFi project that is not specific to CLOBs or associated trading infrastructure, please visit our website to get in touch.
#OrderbooksAreNEAR
About Proximity
Proximity is a research and development firm supporting the NEAR DeFi ecosystem through investments, developer support, open-source software, advisory services, and more. The Proximity team consists of former members of the NEAR Foundation, Binance, Consensys, Facebook, and more. It has advised numerous bluechip DeFi projects contributing to both NEAR and Aurora’s recent success.
About Orderly Network
Orderly Network is a permissionless, decentralized exchange protocol and modular ecosystem built on top of NEAR. It currently uses an off-chain order book to provide a platform complete with a risk engine, matching engine, and shared asset pools for dApps to build on top of, with a goal of moving to a full on-chain mechanism.
About Spin
Spin is a 360° decentralized trading platform on NEAR Protocol. Spin offers a wide range of products designed to meet the demands of both novice and savvy traders, DeFi investors, and passive income seekers.
About Tonic
Tonic is a permissionless, fully on-chain, orderbook-based exchange platform built on NEAR. Our platform allows anyone to create markets for any asset on NEAR L1 or Aurora. Every component of Tonic is built with developers in mind, enabling the community to build a wide range of performant DeFi applications on NEAR.
