Top Ethereum (ETH) Competitor Launches Across Coinbase Retail Ecosystem

A layer-1 scaling solution that seeks to challenge the leading smart contract platform is now available across the entire Coinbase trading platform.

In a new announcement via Twitter, the largest US-based cryptocurrency exchange says that Near Protocol (NEAR) can be bought and sold on its website as well as with the Android and iOS apps.

Near Protocol is an Ethereum (ETH) rival whose aim is to accelerate the process of Web 3.0 development.

According to the project website,

“Ethereum has provided a vision of what’s possible, but with NEAR, you can start building Web3 apps that can scale for mass-adoption today.”

NEAR boasts of “frictionless onboarding” for both developers and everyday users, plus says it’s been certified as carbon neutral by the Swiss consultancy firm South Pole.

User tools include the NEAR Wallet, NEAR Explorer and a cross-chain bridge to Ethereum.

Native utility token NEAR is used for governance, processing transaction fees and can be staked to run network validator nodes.

Near says that developers have used its infrastructure to build out decentralized applications (DApps) across a variety of blockchain niches, including non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and decentralized finance (DeFi).

Near Protocol is currently the 25th-largest crypto asset by market cap, up 1.87% over the past 24 hours and priced at $4.28.

Earlier this week, Coinbase also added the altcoin Aurora (AURORA) to its platform, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) designed by the team behind Near Protocol which offers developers a turn-key solution with low transaction costs.

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