Keeping Up With The Evolution of DeFi on NEAR: Aurora, Rainbow Bridge, and Sputnik DAO Updates
In the past year amazing DeFi tools and applications have emerged from the NEAR ecosystem. So many things are happening that it is difficult to keep up with the evolution of DeFi on NEAR. This series will make things easier for the NEAR community to stay informed as it condenses all the updates with the main DeFi tools, and applications built or partnering with NEAR.
In the previous article we have discussed Ref Finance, Skyward Finance, and Metapool. In this second article of the series ‘The Evolution of DeFi on NEAR’ we will provide an overview of the updates on: Aurora,Rainbow Bridge, and Sputnik DAO.
Aurora
Aurora is an EVM on the NEAR blockchain that allows developers to operate their apps on an Ethereum-compatible, high-throughput, scalable and affordable platform. Its goal is to create an interoperable future, merging economies and facilitating the development of creator communities.
Since its mainnet launch in May, Aurora’s team has worked relentlessly to achieve these goals bringing home important results. On September 1st Aurora announced its first big infrastructure project with Etherscan, the Ethereum block explorer.
This partnership with Etherscan is particularly a great step toward a more interoperable future as it will provide users and developers access to familiar tools and interface and much more. Etherscan is not only a block explorer but it also provides statistics, token transfers and listing, smart contract source of code verification, and the ability to issue and write calls directly from the UI.
Another milestone for Aurora is the launch of its validator, an endeavor that will secure free transactions for its users. Currently, the Rainbow Bridge is funded by the NEAR Foundation but for the Aurora team, launching a validator is a more sustainable option to secure free transactions to its users.
Aurora is also looking to raise funds in order to deploy some updates on the Rainbow Bridge, finalising the transfers from Ethereum to NEAR, and wrapping the EVM Runtime transactions to be consumed by the Aurora contract.
In between these big announcements Aurora also created an Aurora News announcement channel on telegram, where the most important news will be shared.
To stay tuned with Aurora’s progress follow them on Twitter, and on their Telegram group.
Rainbow Bridge
The Rainbow Bridge officially launched in April of this year, opening the gates to users with Ethereum-native assets to the NEAR ecosystem, and enabling them to leverage NEAR transaction speed and incredibly low fees.
Currently, assets can flow freely between NEAR and Ethereum blockchains and users can seamlessly bridge any ERC-20 tokens and stablecoins such as DAI, USDT, TUSD, WBTC, WETH, DEX tokens such as UNI and 1INCH, lending tokens like AAVE and COMP, service company tokens like HT and CRO and more.
Sputnik DAO
The beginning of this year saw the emergence of Sputnik DAO, an infrastructure for DAOs on NEAR that makes it easy for projects and individuals to launch DAOs and configure its governance. Its first design allowed anyone to apply for fund distribution and council users to decide on the proposals.
The newest version of Sputnik DAO, however, allows for a greater degree of contract features. Users can now benefit from the following functionalities:
- Launch a token from the DAO and use it for voting.
- ‘Arbitrary function calls’ so that the DAO can act like any other user for all NEAR dApps including the ability to upgrade the DAO.
- Ability to push bounties.
- Flexible governance system allowing for multiple roles e.g. organisers, supporters, members etc..each with different permissions.
- Votes can be counted either by seats or tokens and have configurable thresholds with the default being 50%.
On top of that, Sputnik DAO is also working on additional changes that will further empower DAOs, and introduce additional features.
To follow the latest news from Sputnik DAO follow their Twitter.
LaDevochka is a writer for 4NTS Guild. You can check out their Medium for more content or follow them on Twitter.
