Near Protocol raises $350M in new funding led by Tiger Global
Near Protocol, a relatively new layer 1 blockchain, announced on Wednesday that it secured a substantial $350 million in funding from top venture capitalists and investors. Combining the capital raised from its January funding round, Near Protocol has already raised half a billion dollars in just 2022 alone.
Led by popular VC firm Tiger Global, the round also included participation from Republic Capital, FTX Ventures, Hashed, Dragonfly Capital, ParaFi Capital, Blockchange Ventures, and MetaWeb.vc. The platform seeks to “accelerate the decentralization of the NEAR ecosystem,” per the press release issued today.
Similar to the Ethereum blockchain, Near Protocol offers smart contracts functionality with its own consensus mechanism called “Doomslug.” However, unlike Ethereum, the protocol has centered its operability around sharding, which distributes the network’s infrastructure to various nodes. The nodes, in turn, handle only a fraction of transactions occurring on the blockchain, thereby improving transaction throughput and cost-efficiency.
John Curtius, a partner at Tiger Global, said in the announcement post: “NEAR is poised to be a leading smart contract blockchain platform, combining first-rate technology with a fast-growing developer ecosystem. We’re excited to support NEAR as we ramp up our investments in the digital asset space.”
With the current market cap of $10.46 billion, the NEAR token ranks 19th in CoinMarketCap’s ranking of top cryptocurrencies. The token was trading at $15.78 with a 24-hour price shift of -5.24%.
Top Cryptocurrencies with Price Predictions
| # | Crypto | Prediction | Accuracy | CVIX | Price | 24h | 7d | Market Cap | 7d price change | |
| 1 |  BTC |
Bitcoin predictions | 63.6% | 80 | $30 425.86 | 1.89% | -1.92% | $579 391 415 566 |  |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 |  ETH |
Ethereum predictions | 61.2% | 79 | $2 090.50 | 3.30% | -10.78% | $252 573 435 663 |  |
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| 3 |  USDT |
Tether predictions | 93.2% | 1 | $0.998912 | 0.01% | -0.09% | $75 669 699 902 |  |
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| 4 |  USDC |
USD Coin predictions | 96% | 1 | $1.000223 | -0.04% | 0.04% | $52 257 588 805 |  |
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| 5 |  BNB |
Binance Coin predictions | 62.8% | 79 | $306.01 | 2.69% | -4.14% | $49 964 118 179 |  |
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| 6 |  XRP |
XRP predictions | 63.6% | 70 | $0.437623 | 3.58% | -14.80% | $21 156 072 907 |  |
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| 7 |  ADA |
Cardano predictions | 64% | 70 | $0.578106 | 3.81% | -8.07% | $19 504 744 967 |  |
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| 8 |  SOL |
Solana predictions | 62% | 80 | $57.15 | 6.48% | -14.37% | $19 281 004 281 |  |
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| 9 |  BUSD |
Binance USD predictions | 92.8% | 1 | $1.001801 | 0.23% | 0.21% | $18 227 343 147 |  |
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| 10 |  DOGE |
Dogecoin predictions | 64.8% | 80 | $0.090213 | 2.70% | -16.84% | $11 968 648 400 |  |
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| 11 |  DOT |
Polkadot predictions | 66% | 77 | $11.03 | 3.86% | -2.85% | $10 897 183 478 |  |
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| 12 |  AVAX |
Avalanche predictions | 60% | 78 | $34.41 | 5.51% | -22.75% | $9 258 886 148 |  |
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| 13 |  WBTC |
Wrapped Bitcoin predictions | 60% | 80 | $30 467.72 | 2.06% | -1.79% | $8 633 147 111 |  |
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| 14 |  TRX |
TRON predictions | 69.6% | 60 | $0.072292 | 4.60% | -6.07% | $7 059 564 799 |  |
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| 15 |  SHIB |
SHIBA INU predictions | 62.8% | 78 | $0.000013 | 4.67% | -22.56% | $6 893 647 644 |  |
