NEAR Community Monthly — JULY 2021
Ok, ok, you read the title and we get it, it’s not quite July anymore. It might be the middle of August, but we can promise you the July roundup of the NEAR ecosystem was worth the wait!
This month, we’ll be taking a look back at some of the hottest moments in the NEARverse. Read on to learn more about the $1m prize pool for the MetaBUIDL Hackathon, the upcoming launch of Octopus Network, and our usual highlights from the Community and beyond.
MetaBUIDL: Call For Registrations
NEAR MetaBUIDL is a string of Hackathons with a $1m pool of prizes running until the end of the year, each hackathon has one core goal; BUIDL NEAR ecosystem.
Although much of the MetaBUIDL journey will be held online, we’re implementing a novel mixed physical-virtual format in several cities around the globe in the form of ‘Hack-Nodes’ which will be lucky enough to host hackers in person.
If you’re a NEAR Community advocate in your city, or you’d like to step up to the mark and become one, then we’d love to see you join the MetaBUIDL program as a Hack-Node. Interested in spinning one up? Check out the details for creating your own local Hack-Node here.
Fancy yourself an ecosystem hacker? A driven developer? Or the leader of a thriving local community ready to take on the role of a Hack-Node? Look no further, you can find out more about all things MetaBUIDL and how to get involved here.
Oh, and did we mention there’s $1m in prizes up for grabs?
Project Spotlight: Octopus Network
As we stride into what is, seemingly, the golden age for crypto and blockchain technology, the number of innovative projects building atop NEAR protocol is exploding. One project, at the center of this, is Octopus Network.
Octopus is a cryptonetwork for launching and running Web3.0 application specific blockchains, aka appchains.
Octopus appchains benefit from being both an autonomous blockchain, and a member of a well-connected network with rich services and facilities to utilize. The future is interoperable, and Octopus Network is making this a reality.
Are you as hyped as we are? Then you need to know that the Octopus Network IDO is taking place on Skyward Finance — the sale period runs from 22nd — 28th of August.
NEARWEEK Highlights
If you’re not familiar with NEAR Week yet then what are you waiting for?! NEAR Week is the go-to weekly newsletter for all things NEAR wrapped up in a bundle and delivered to the NEARverse and our Community weekly.
With each monthly newsletter, we bring you some of the hottest highlights which NEAR Week has reported on. Subscribe here and get it straight off the press!
This month, we’re celebrating:
- Getting close to 300k transactions/day!
The NEAR Ecosystem is growing, and the stats don’t lie. - Alibaba’s e-commerce website Taobao included NFT arts in its Maker Festival in collaboration with NEAR.
- NFTs, I think we can all agree, are one of the hottest topics in the blockchain world right now, and NEAR is facilitating major industry adoption.
Forum Post of The Month
Those of you who’ve been perusing the NEAR Governance Forum (and hopefully getting involved), almost certainly won’t have missed the hottest thread of the month — ‘Establishing NEAR Wiki’
Education is core at the NEAR Foundation, and what better way to deliver the details on our vision, the technicalities of NEAR, and how to get started than a single detailed repository? This thread has proudly birthed the NEAR Wiki (oh, it’s still a work in progress).
If you’d like to contribute to the NEAR Wiki and the facilitation of information throughout the NEARverse, feel free to reply on the Governance thread for access to the Gitbooks.
Forum Posts — Honorable Mentions
With so many wonderful threads being created on the daily on the NEAR Governance Forum it’s hard to pick just one to take the crown as ‘Forum Post of The Month’.
In this regard, we’d like to take a moment (or two) to shine a spotlight on a few of our honorable mentions this month:
Q2 Guild Survey Results
Our quarterly survey for any and all Guilds in the NEAR Ecosystem.
Governance & DAO Vertical Updates
We saw the arrival of community playbooks as well as a tonne of updates to documentation around Guilds, including:
- Introducing the Guilds Management Crew
- Update to Guilds onboarding pathway
- Templates for introducing your Guild
- Update to funding for the Guilds program
NEAR Ecosystem Opportunities
The NEAR ecosystem is growing at a rapid pace and there’s almost certainly room for you! Check out open positions at NEAR and the opportunities available in the Open Web Sandbox
Featured Guild: NEAR Hispano
The NEAR Community is global, and this is evident with the breadth of the reach of the Guild program. This month’s featured Guild is NEAR Hispano.
“The voice of the Hispanic community for the NEAR blockchain ecosystem”
With education, support, and promotion forming the three pillars of NEAR Hispano, we’re confident they’ll go far in building the international NEAR Community in Spanish-speaking regions. Viva NEAR Hispano!
Living up to those pillars, and reflecting the values of the NEAR Ecosystem as a whole, the NEAR Hispano Guild has been hard at work. Delivering a 10x increase in the amount of users undertaking the NEAR training course on NEAR Academy through their University connections and bootcamps.
Their efforts don’t stop there, however. The NEAR Hispano Guild have been working on documenting development in RUST in Spanish to help bootcamp participants understand what it takes to start building on the NEAR Protocol.
The August Townhall
Town Halls play an essential role in pursuing a connection with, and the growth of, the NEAR Community. If you missed it last month (you’re missing out), then don’t worry! You can catch up with it here.
This month’s Town Hall is set to go live on August 26th. We’ll be sharing more details as we approach the date, you can RSVP to the Town Hall here.
Upcoming Events
Grab your calendars, diaries, or (realistically) Google Calendars, there’s plenty in the pipework for the NEARverse over the coming months.
FirstBlood E-sports tournaments
Aug 8 — Sep 23
Filecoin partnership for grants
Aug 12
Aug 19
Metapool (liquid staking, Meta Pool — liquid staking on NEAR blockchain — stNEAR)
Aug 23
Aug 26
Aug 27- Sep 12
Other Transmissions Within The NEARverse
Wilde Möhre
In a first of its kind, Wilde Möhre is a hybrid NFT festival taking place in South Eastern Brandenburg, Germany. The festival has played host the music, wellness sessions, masked balls and, of course, NFTs powered by NEAR Protocol.
The Open Forestation Protocol
As the first blockchain to be verified as climate neutral, the NEAR Foundation is particularly aware of the impact which is taking place in our climate right now. This awareness is shared, and embodied, by Open Forestation Protocol.
The Open Forestation Protocol (OFP) provides an open and accessible platform for monitoring, reporting, and verifying the entire lifecycle of a reforestation project.
Meta Pool
Meta Pool allows NEAR token holders to stake and earn rewards, providing an easy way to unstake with no lockup. By leveraging low-fee, high-performance validators, and the creation of stNEAR, Meta Pool is able to increase the level of flexibility in the NEAR staking economy.
Not only does Meta Pool increase flexibility, it compounds the decentralization of the NEAR network and contributes to the censorship resistant nature.
Keep Up to Date With All Things NEAR
If you made it this far, thank you! July was a bumper month for all things NEAR and we expect August to top it! We hope to see you around at our Town Hall, the upcoming Hackathons, and on the Governance Forum.
You can also get the succeeding monthly newsletters via email by subscribing here.
If you’d like to leave feedback regarding this newsletter then please respond directly to this email or reach out on JC@near.foundation.
—
written by David Morrison
in partnership with Peter Humaidan of NEARWEEK
