NEAR’s One-Year Performance with Marieke – A Review

With an ambitious plan to onboard 5 billion users in 5 years, Marieke made some intriguing moves in NEAR. Remember that it took WhatsApp, a popular messaging platform, six years to reach over 2 billion users. Nevertheless, NEAR’s CEO, Marieke Flament, is well on her way to accomplishing these ambitions.

NEAR currently has a user base of over 22 million and aims to become the leading smart contract blockchain. However, its most significant moves in 2022 are intriguing. As the company moves closer to its goals, it is time to review its 2022 performance.

Mid-year into 2022, Marieke shared her insights on some structural changes and the evolving ecosystem. A vision to bring Web 3.0 to the masses is ambitious, and we should give kudos to NEAR. With that in mind, here are the company’s most significant moves in 2022.

Global Partnership with SailGP

Barely three months into the year, NEAR announced a multi-million-dollar partnership with SailGP. The move would create a new team managed by a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) on NEAR. In addition, there were plans that the team could debut in the SailGP starting lineup for season 4 in 2023.

The SailGP DAO will be different from other sports teams. It will change the way sports communities work and give fans a voice. Also, it would get input from the DAO community members on its team management, commercials, operations, and strategy.

While the team’s debut was a big deal, the partnership had other objectives or projects. One was to inspire new Web 3.0 developers to turn to NEAR. 

In June, SailGP launched its first digital collectibles three months after the partnership. The move came from the promised NFT, gaming, and mobile application offerings. NEAR took its entertainment game a step higher by infusing technology.

Health Meets Blockchain with NEAR and SweatEconomy’s Partnership

You may have heard of the famous token encouraging people to walk to mint. Sweatcoin became an exciting choice in a world with many ways to get tokens. Nevertheless, that continued NEAR’s vision of driving its blockchain solutions worldwide.

In April 2022, NEAR announced a partnership with SweatEconomy, the London-based tech company. The launch of the NEAR-based Sweatcoin followed immediately afterward. It aimed to encourage healthy living while increasing engagement with Web 3.0.

According to its LinkedIn profile, the SweatCoin app already boasts over 120 million users. The partnership made its mark by increasing Web 3.0 engagements as intended. Nevertheless, the coin became available for purchase after its initial “acrobatic” minting process.

$100 Million Backing for Caerus Ventures

As part of its plan to get more people to use Web 3.0, NEAR announced its backing of Caerus Ventures. The deal had a $50 million initial closing, with a $100 million target for seed funding in Series A.

With the massive funds behind it, Caerus Ventures can push innovative ideas in culture and entertainment. The creators, talent, IP owners, and community will be at the heart of these new companies.

This new deal took little time to get its first investment, Venture Lab. It will work with creators and talents to build next-rated platforms and applications. With this in mind, the best engineers and developers working on Web 3.0 will be interested in Venture Lab.

The whole point of Caerus Ventures and NEAR is to change how people think about sports, TV, art, and games, among other things. Even so, paying more attention and giving more equity to the creators and talent behind them.

Blockchain Music and Gaming Expansion of the Ecosystem

While NEAR made some notable partnerships this year, it also significantly expanded its ecosystem. Two of its biggest launches were Endless and Armored Kingdom.

Endless followed the massive growth of music and Web 3.0 by letting people make music, market it, and connect with others. The platform launched as a virtual gathering place with social media tools for interaction and music production tools. With those capabilities, musicians can create jam sessions and mint their music NFTs.

Armored Kingdom brings the metaverse to life with immersive gaming, storytelling, and NFT functionalities. The project started with an NFT airdrop at Consensus, followed by the establishment of the South Korea Regional Hub. Still, bringing the NEAR blockchain into the large gaming community is at the center of these changes.

2022 brought considerable leaps to NEAR’s ecosystem and protocol. It cemented meaningful partnerships and launched its reach into music and gaming. The company has over 22 million users and is growing.