NEAR/EUR: Convert NEAR Protocol (NEAR) to Euro (EUR)

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) is a layer-one blockchain designed to function as a community-run cloud computing platform. It aims to address some of the limitations that have been challenging other blockchains, such as low transaction speeds, limited throughput, and poor interoperability. NEAR Protocol provides a conducive environment for decentralized applications (DApps) and strives to create a platform that is both developer and user-friendly. For example, NEAR uses human-readable account names, unlike the cryptographic wallet addresses common to other platforms. NEAR Protocol is being developed by the NEAR Collective, a community that is continually updating the initial code and releasing updates to the ecosystem.

NEAR Protocol operates using its unique consensus mechanism known as "Doomslug." It also employs its Nightshade technology to significantly improve transaction throughput. Nightshade is a variation of sharding, where individual sets of validators process transactions in parallel across multiple sharded chains, enhancing the overall capacity of the blockchain. NEAR Protocol aims to achieve up to 100,000 transactions per second and near-instant transaction finality thanks to a one-second block cadence, while keeping transaction fees virtually zero. Additionally, NEAR Protocol simplifies the onboarding process of other blockchains by having human-readable addresses and building decentralized applications with a similar registration flow to what users have already experienced.

NEAR Protocol is designed to manage high-value assets and make them useful for everyday people. It provides a platform for the development of various projects. For example, Flux, a protocol that allows developers to create markets based on assets, commodities, and real-world events, and Mintbase, a platform for minting non-fungible tokens (NFTs), are examples of projects being built on NEAR Protocol. The NEAR token is used for processing transactions and storing data, running validator nodes on the network via staking NEAR tokens, and for governance votes to determine how network resources are allocated.

NEAR Protocol was founded by Erik Trautman, Illia Polosukhin, and Alexander Skidanov. Erik Trautman is an entrepreneur with experience on Wall Street and the founder of Viking Education. Illia Polosukhin has over ten years of industry experience, including three years at Google. Alexander Skidanov is a computer scientist who worked at Microsoft and later joined memSQL, where he became the director of engineering. The NEAR Protocol team includes several International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) gold medalists and winners. NEAR Protocol launched its mainnet on April 22, 2020, with 1 billion NEAR tokens created at genesis.