The NEAR Foundation’s Benchmark Release
The NEAR Foundation, the non-profit organization running NEAR Protocol, made a mainnet announcement on August 8. Chain signatures are the new feature that enables users to sign transactions of any different blockchains directly from their NEAR wallets, without the use of traditional cross-chain bridges.
The launch of this feature is a significant progress towards the development of cross-chain interoperability, which allows NEAR Protocol to support numerous blockchains, such as Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Dogecoin (DOGE), Ripple (XRP), Cosmos (ATOM), and Polkadot (DOT). The foundation announced its intention to make their solutions available for Solana (SOL) and others as well in the forthcoming times.
The Way Chain Signatures Function
Another Way to Make Cross-Chain Interactions a Reality
One way chain signatures work is by giving a novel one in dealing with different blockchains. It employs an additive key derivation procedure, which creates many subkeys from one single key, making it possible for NEAR accounts to control addresses on multiple blockchains.
When a user wants to initiate a transaction on another blockchain, the smart contract on NEAR asks for a signature from the target blockchain. The process goes through the use of multi-party computation (MPC) to, thereby, prevent any unfavorable actors from exploiting user funds.
This mincing model of MPC is backed by eight validators – Pagoda, Luganodes, The Lifted Initiative, InfStones, Staking4All, Node.Monster, Black Sand Technologies, Aurora. The overall security is provided by these validators and is the main facet of the whole system regulating the integrity of cross chain transactions.
Benefits of Chain Signatures
A Leap Towards a Unified Blockchain Ecosystem
By using chain signatures, NEAR Protocol wants to make it easy for users to interact with any blockchain, be it a DeFi decentralized application (DApp) or the omnichain tokens. The feature is identified to be the main driving force behind lowering the bar to entry, increasing market liquidity and consumer usability of decentralized finance (DeFi) in the ecosystem. This company has developed a ready-to-wear line of blouses and suits designed by the latest technology and made from the best materials. It means that people from any country are able to invest in such gold even though the barrier of language is not an issue.
The chain signatures of NEAR Protocol are being likened to a “game-changing innovation” by Illia Polosukhin, the CEO of the NEAR Foundation, who is credited with integrating the concept of a succinct chain signature from the world of baseball into the digital universe. Polosukhin explained that unlike in the past where its liquidity was fragmented, now only one DeFi layer will be shared across all chains. He underlined that the technology clears up the complexities of wallets, addresses, bridging, and token gas fees, thereby making the entire DeFi landscape accessible to everyone wherever they are.
Chain signatures are also a point of interest along with financial applications based on Web3, which Ilia Polosukhin was equally thrilled to talk about. Without half the world disconnecting itself through adapter “standardization” so far, we probably will have no peace with the overall speed gain and network simplification. Consequently, what we will need is connection harmonization which will unite all the items in the world.
NEAR Protocol’s Growth and Future Prospects
NEAR the Lead Blockchain Network
Immediately, NEAR Protocol achieved the chain signatures as part of its plan to reach chain abstraction and thereby bridge blockchains making the system one network. This avenue is anticipated to bring more participants into DeFi Markets.
The month ago, NEAR was the second most actively used blockchain by daily active users, with 1.95 million users, just after TRON which accounted for 2.1 million users, as it was found in the news report by VanEck on July 2024. It was an astonishment to the number of people who died because of the illness and how it had taken over worldwide.
The majority of NEAR’s user addition is due to user-generated activity, especially through a discount shopping application called Kai Kai, which is located in Taiwan.
Partnering with NEAR, a blockchain development platform, I see that each link will play a significant role in the future of cross-chain interactions and decentralized finance.
