Ethereum 2.0 rival raises $21m from a16z

The self-proclaimed Ethereum 2.0 rivaling protocol, NEAR Protocol, recently raised $21 million. The funds come from a top-tier crypto venture capitalist, Andressen Horrowitz, also known as a16z. The company invested this major amount only days after announcing a $515 million-large fund.

The fund’s purpose is to help expand a16z’s own crypto investment division. Now, one of its first moves was to invest in a protocol that is in direct competition with Ethereum 2.0.

Of course, the funding round also included other participants, including some of the past investors, and new participants. Some of the biggest names among the participants are Electric Capital, Pantera Capital, Blockchange, and others.

NEAR mainnet is already live

The project also confirmed the launch of its MainNet. It revealed that developers will now have the ability to create dApps, as well as expect the release of native tokens. Such tokens will serve for transfers and microtransactions, but the project noted that this will come at a slightly later date.

NEAR also pointed out its own major benefits, including the developer-friendly interface. Apart from that, it also stands out due to easy-to-run directories, and major project-building capabilities. It is more advanced than any other currently available alternative.

The project’s CEO, Illia Polosukhin, said that the genesis block was already launched, albeit recently, in late April. “Developers can actually deploy production apps while the network gets more decentralized and is ultimately handed off completely to the community over the next several months,” the CEO added.

NEAR taking the lead as Ethereum progresses slowly

NEAR and similar projects are currently seeing a lot of popularity. In fact, they became a hot topic ever since the idea of the ‘Open Web’ — the economy of dApps and stateless microtransactions — had emerged. However, while projects like Bitcoin and Ethereum were expected to take the lead, they appear to be too limited for that.

Ethereum itself is used by companies and institutions around the world. Even so, the project cannot scale to meet the demand, and its network struggles during peak periods.

The overall progress of these projects is very slow and constantly faces delays. There are also issues like the lack of coordination, and disagreements between developers that lead to major splits. Also, the projects do not have anyone to oversee them or lead the development.

Ethereum is nearing Ethereum 2.0, however, but it appears that NEAR will take the lead, after all.