Infighting or self-help? What is Near's intention to change senior management three times in two months?

Original author: Xiyou, ChainCatcher

Within two days, Near officials announced two controversial actions in succession. First, the foundation announced a layoff of 40% , and then released an updated roadmap for 2024.

On January 11, the Near  Foundation announced that it would reduce its team members by 40%, with the main impact being on marketing and business development. and community teams, involving a total of 35 employees. This layoff will reduce the Near Foundation team members from the initial 90 to about 55.

The next day, Near released the 2024 update roadmap, introducing stateless verification, developing zkWASM, improving data availability, etc. to improve  NEAR Usability, scalability and decentralization of the protocol.

Today's encryption market is in a critical period of turning from bear to bull. Most Web3 projects are recruiting people and expanding their teams to welcome the next round of bull market, and Near  ; The foundation is completely contrary to mainstream expectations, laying off employees on a large scale and reducing the size of the team.

Near Why are massive layoffs announced at a critical moment in the crypto market cycle? Is this the long-rumored "infighting within the team" or a "self-rescue act"?

Foundation layoffs 40% 

Currently, users and the market are facing  ;Near  Views on foundation layoffs: The benefits outweigh the disadvantages. Most community users believe that the layoffs are the result of Near founder Illia Polosukhin (referred to as Illia, translated as "One Dragon" in Chinese) to reorganize the team after returning to the foundation, which not only streamlines expenses and saves costs, It also eliminates unnecessary personnel, which is a great benefit to the future development of Near .

The reason for this conclusion is that two pieces of key information were released in the Near layoff announcement. One is to improve the foundation's work efficiency, The result of a thorough review of its activities; second, the foundation's financial situation was disclosed, with assets currently worth more than $1.3 billion.

Yilong said in the layoff announcement that the Near Foundation together with its board of directors (NFC) conducted a thorough review of the foundation's activities. During this process , there was feedback that the foundation was not always effective, sometimes moving too slowly and trying to do too many things at once. After this review, the team decided to significantly integrate the core foundation team, narrow the scope of work, and focus on more impactful activities.

It stated that as part of this reorganization, the NEAR Foundation will reduce its team by approximately 40% affecting 35 colleagues , mainly marketing, business development and community teams

The layoff announcement stated that the Near Foundation's financial position remains strong and good, with more than 2.85  billion in fiat currency,  305 305 NEAR tokens (valued over 10 billion), and $70 million in investments and loans.

After the announcement of Near layoffs, some community users expressed their optimism that Near the layoffs would streamline staff, improve efficiency, and reduce expenses. , and solved the long-standing complaints from users about the foundation's low efficiency and lack of attention to the development of the ecosystem. The robust financial data also indirectly clarified the long-rumored rumor that the "Near Foundation is short of money."

In this regard, a community user commented that Near has finally begun to pay attention to the issue of foundations. Foundations are important in promoting the ecological development of blockchain projects. The organization not only manages the huge treasury funds that determine the future of the project, but also needs to formulate development and marketing strategies that are in line with its own tonality and support high-quality early ecological projects. Today's Near Foundation has publicly stated that the crypto assets under its control exceed  1.3 USD, and most of this funding will be used to support ecosystem development or vigorously support ecological projects, which is a great benefit to Near 's future ecological growth.

On the day the layoffs were announced, the price of the NEAR token rushed from US$3.19 to US$3.69, an intraday increase of more than  15% . On January 22nd, the price of NEAR fell back to US$2.9 and fluctuated up and down.

Changing "top leaders" three times in 2 months

User attention Near  Behind the appearance of layoffs at the foundation, there is another important reason: whether this layoff is related to founder Yilong's return to the foundation.

Since September 2023, the top management of the Near Foundation has undergone three major changes.

Marieke Flament  has served as CEO of the Near  Foundation since the first quarter of 2022 in September last year. Announced resignation.

Subsequently, the foundation was handed over to the leadership of legal counsel Chris Donovan.

On November 7, Near  founder Yilong announced his return to the foundation as CEO, responsible for leading Near  Ecosystem enters next phase of building open network, Chris Donova moves to COO.

In January 2022, the Near  Foundation announced the appointment of Circle and Mettle former executives Marieke Flament   CEO After that, Yilong withdrew from the foundation.

In less than two months, Near Foundation CEO has gone through three personnel changes. Users have various opinions on the reasons for the foundation's frequent personnel changes, and there are constant rumors of internal strife within the team.

What really ripped open the veil of problems with the Near Foundation was the "Wintermute USN Exchange Controversy" controversy.

On November 8, 2023, Wintermute founder Evgeny Gaevoy publicly posted a message on social media to criticize  The Near  Foundation and Aurora Labs (Near ’s EVM  chain Aurora  developer and founding members are also from the Near  team) broke their trust, saying they did not abide by the contract and refused to fulfill the redemption value  Commitment agreement for US$11.2 million stablecoin USN.

To put it simply, Aurora  previously told Wintermute that any amount of USN can be exchanged back to USDT, and No source of funding is required. Under the guarantee of this commitment, Wintermute  purchased 11.2 million USD worth of USN stablecoins from FTX Assets, but by Wintermute exchanged USN for USDT  Near and Aurora rejected.

In response to this matter, Illia  and the foundation responded and explained that after the USN  was closed due to insufficient mortgage, the USN Protection Plan (USNPP) was established. Operated by Aurora Labs to protect affected individuals. However, Wintermute rejected the request because the existence or use of the USN purchased from FTX for price difference arbitrage would bring losses to ecological users.

But this incident once again pointed the finger at the Near Foundation and the aborted stable currency project USN, questioning the relationship between them The sound kept coming.

Some users left messages saying: "The Near Foundation is worse than hackers. It originally promised that USN can be exchanged for USDT, but now it does not support it. I swallowed tens of millions of dollars at once.", "The stablecoin USN is not officially launched by Near at all, but the operation of the Near Foundation seems to have an unusual relationship with USN. It’s like an official incubation project, but the management is really chaotic.” The rumor that "The Near Foundation has no money" also originated from here.

Public information shows that the stablecoin USN  is a project issued by Decentral Bank on Near in 2022 . Although Decentral Bank calls itself an independently operated community-operated project without direct financial assistance from the Near Foundation. However, since the stablecoin is mainly generated by NEAR token mortgage and received public support from the Near Foundation in the early stage of its launch, this creates a feeling for users that USN is funded by the Near Foundation. The illusion of official operation.

In October 2022, after USN announced its closure due to insufficient mortgage, the Near Foundation immediately established a US$40 million Fund to support the conversion of USN to USDT . This exchange support operation has made users suspect that there is an unspeakable relationship between USN and Near Foundation officials.

As of January 22nd, the dispute between Wintermute and the Near Foundation has not yet come to a clear conclusion. Wintermute  The founder has not stopped suing him. He has said that if the Near Foundation continues to do this, he will take legal measures.

The controversy with Wintermute revealed issues such as chaotic management of the Near Near Foundation team and unclear boundaries of relationships with ecological stakeholders.

Yilong's return at this juncture is also considered to be to rectify the chaotic management of the Near Foundation team and return to the foundation's two A few months later, they announced a layoff of 40%, which was a purge of the team.

Near Development dilemma: TVL stagnant growth, poor on-chain applications

Ziyi After Long announced his return to the foundation, Near  also announced a series of new actions in terms of products.

First, the Near Foundation announced its cooperation with Polygon Labs to develop zero-knowledge proof ZK virtual machine zkWASM; secondly, the launch of new The project Near DA Data Availability Layer entered the field of modular blockchain; then, it cooperated with Eigen Labs to build a fast termination layer for Ethereum Layer 2 to shorten transaction time and reduce costs. Reduced by 1/4000 of the original value.

With the overall recovery of the encryption market, NEAR coin prices have also been rising, from 1.5 on 11 month 8  The US dollar reached a peak of US$4.6 on December 6, with a cumulative increase of more than 200%, and fell back to US$2.9 on January 22. .

However , judging from the on-chain operation data, this series of actions did not bring any improvement to the development of the Near ecology. The number of on-chain applications has stagnated and TVL has not increased.

According to the DeFiLlama data platform, since 4 2023 Year TVL on the Near chain has been hovering at $30 million for a long time. Things did not improve until the end of December 12. The value of crypto assets locked on the chain on January 22nd was US$88.27 million, and TVL ranked among many public chains. ;31 , and there are only 22  applications on the chain.

For Community user  Moli considered Yilong's series of actions after returning to the fund as an act of self-rescue by Near . Currently Near 's development is in trouble, and the ecology on the chain has been stagnant for a long time, with neither New applications and user activity are not very high, and new vitality needs to be injected into them.

He explained that Near and Solana and Polygon of the same period Compared with other chains such as Avlanche and Avlanche, their development is always slower, and the gap between them is getting wider and wider. In the last wave of EVM network hype, Near was the last to launch and was not launched until the end of the bull market.  EVM Network Aurora, and now, Solana has completely emerged from the haze of the FTX collapse by relying on the ecological wealth creation effect; Polygon because of its tight grasp of Layer 2 narrative, it has successfully transformed into Layer  2 The top project and attracted a group of developers; Avlanche Although the popularity has not yet fully recovered, the hype of the local dog on the chain has not stopped.

With Correspondingly, the status of the Near network has always been unstable, and there are basically no new applications on the chain. There are only a few established DEX, lending, and liquidity staking protocols for participation.

During the public chain inscription hype in November last year, Near chain also launched the inscription project NEAT, and won Yilong and Multi-Near ecology  KOL's retweet support attracted a large number of users to participate, and even caused Binance and OKX to temporarily stop withdrawing coins. On November 30, the number of transactions on its chain exceeded 10 million, setting a record According to the single-day transaction history, the number of new wallet addresses on the chain exceeds 170,000.

Although The emergence of NEAT has brought a huge amount of heat and attention to the Near ecology in a short period of time, but the ecological applications cannot bear it. In addition to hyping the price of Inscription, users can’t seem to find anything. A more fun application.

As the popularity of Inscription has cooled down, the price of NEAT currency has also begun to fall, with a drop of more than 50% in the last 14 days.  , the current quotation is 0.1 USD, and at the same time Near on-chain transaction data has also begun to decline.

1 Month 17  According to ChainCatcher  news, Near ecological re-staking platform Linear announced that it will airdrop the governance token LNR to community users. Once again, it attracted a wave of traffic to Near interactiveNear ecological applications. It has become a new topic in the encryption community, but after entering the ecosystem, users found that there are very few applications available on the near chain.

In this regard, the community User Kai Competition for capabilities, including users, developers and communities.

He proposed that Near the most important thing now is to focus on developing the ecosystem, especially  Applications such as DeFi  should not wait until there is no application to handle every time traffic comes, and ecological prosperity is not a cluster. Officials need to continuously provide resource support and empowerment for developers and communities.

Focus on Web2 chain reform, Near attempt to "self-rescue"?

Concerning the stagnation of TVL data on the chain, Long-term holder of NEAR Nick  said that the level of TVL data cannot truly reflect the activity of Near on-chain. This is mainly related to the ecological development strategy adopted by Near At present,Near  ; We encourage cooperation with Web2 applications that have a user base and help them rebuild their business models with the help of blockchain technology.

The strategy of "actively supporting chain modification of Web2 applications" can be confirmed from Yilong's interview with DeFiant in January.

When it comes to the development of Near ecological applications, Yilong said that at present Near more hopes to help those Web2 applications that already have user groups. , use the blockchain to find your own business realization model, instead of focusing on whether the project can bring TVL.

He gave an example that Sweatcoin, the project currently active on the Near chain, was originally a Web2 sports project and successfully cooperated with Near  Transformed into a Web3 walking coin earning project, SWEAT coins earned by users through exercise can not only be used for transactions to earn price differences, but can also be used to purchase co-branded products, such as yoga classes, daily necessities, etc.

’s native encryption project is the “Chain Revision” shopping platform of the consumer shopping data analysis platform Cosmose AI, which it co-invests in. With the help of Near, it launched KAI-Ching, a stable currency linked to the US dollar. Users Use KaiKai App to shop, play, or write product reviews to earn extra KAI-Ching tokens and more.

According to Near Daily statistical ecological data, KaiKai  and Sweatcoin  have become ecologically active users in the past 30 days Near  Among the projects with the largest number, KaiKai has more than 2 million active users and Sweatcoin has more than 1 million users.

Although these applications did not directly bring TVL increase to Near , their arrival also brought in their existing users.  Near ecology, but allowing Web3 technology to be used by more users outside the circle, the number of interactions on the chain and the number of wallets are also growing.

Perhaps by becoming a chain modification tool for Web2 applications, I have tasted the traffic dividends brought by cooperation with it. The current  Near development strategy is also focused on providing developers and users with a high-performance, good-experience underlying network, realizing the vision of Near network being adopted by the mainstream.

It can also be seen from the 2023 work results and Q4 update roadmap released by Near .

The 2023 Near Near network has two functional improvements that greatly reduce the threshold for using and entering the Near ecology. Among them, a new meta transaction function has been added to support Gas-free transactions, that is, users do not need to use NEAR tokens to pay Gas fees when using applications on the Near chain; in addition, it has also added It has created a zero-balance account, allowing users to create wallet accounts without holding  NEAR  tokens, which solves the problem that users have complained about in the past that creating a wallet account requires holding  0.1 NEAR  or more tokens first. Makes it easy for new users to use the application.

In the 2024 roadmap, in terms of product performance, the stateless verification function introduced by Near can not only improve network security, Avoiding the implementation of fraud proofs, while also improving the throughput and performance of each shard; the zkWASM developed in cooperation with Polygon can be used as the EVM execution environment of the L2 network, as well as the introduction of the data availability layer  NEAR DA can help developers build L2 networks more easily.

In terms of user experience, the proposed account aggregation function will allow users to use one Near  account to control accounts on different chains, which is also Near  An important step in the chain abstract vision plan. In addition, the problem that Ethereum wallets such as MetaMask cannot support the Near network that causes users a headache will also be solved.

Currently, Near  The launched data availability layer product NEAR DA has been integrated with developer stacks such as Polygon CDK and Arbitrum Orbit. Developers can use it to build their own L2 or L3 networks.

However, regarding the roadmap for this update, some community users commented that this is in line with Near 's consistent "imitation" style of revising the roadmap every quarter. First, it copied Ethereum Then this year FET waited for AI to become popular and then turned to AI things. Now after modular TIA and Layer 2  became popular, they copied DA  Layer, I hope that from now on, Near 's imitation strategy will end and it can find a different path on its own.