Hello, NEAR family!
As you may know, one of the main goals for NEAR is greater accountability, using the power of smart contracts, i.e. open web services. This means we are committed to supporting all kinds of developers building real solutions. For all intents and purposes, transparent collaboration facilitates coordination around the shared vision of the whole NEAR ecosystem. We imagine a world where all people have control of their money, data, and power of governance.
This thread will begin a series of weekly updates, intended to bring everyone together and surface a few important links. I hope you reply with your own priorities and progress!
Highlight: 2021 Q1 Engineering OKRs
Summary
January has been a considerable turning point for NEAR, and I’m excited to share what I’ve gathered so far. Our core teams, known as the collective, recently began posting weekly updates here on the forum. This meta update links to specific team updates (and more).
You can see a list of posts tagged as “weekly updates” here:
https://gov.near.org/tag/weekly-updates
NEAR Engineering Update
Developer Relations Update
Berry Pickers Update
At this time, the canonical location of updates is in the GitHub Discussions:
Rainbow Bridge Update
EVM Update
Recent Blog Posts
Early 2021 is bringing lots of exciting initiatives! We are planning to announce the launch of the NEAR Grants Program, debut improvements to the NEAR community governance experience, and release updates about the Rainbow Bridge 
Open Web Collective
Open Web Collective just announced their second batch of projects, including Kamix, HEO, Verida, Nym, Sarcophagus, Wificoin, Paras, Hash Rush, MintGate, and Vezt. Read the tweet thread below for details on each company.
Also, have a listen to this podcast episode featuring Marguerite DeCourcelle, CEO of Blockade Games, a leading blockchain video game development studio and maker of Neon District.
Guilds
Our community has been really busy lately! We are in the process of carefully revamping the processes of guild formation, discovery, and coordination.
Below are highlights from two particularly active communities in our ecosystem. For a more comprehensive look at NEAR Guilds, check out these reports:
https://gov.near.org/tag/guild-report
Createbase
They have a brand new site!
4NTS
Most Referred Forum Topics
- 2021 Q1 Engineering OKRs
- Add secp validator key to enable pessimistic bridge
- Planning for AssemblyScript support and integration for the next 6 months, starting Jan '21
- Community Squad
we serve and empower the NEAR Ecosystem of Communities - Welcome Egor Kulikov to the NEAR Team
- Launching Sputnik DAOs
- EVM Runtime base token
Community Participation
Please don’t hesitate to give updates on what you’re doing, as it relates to the NEAR ecosystem. Ask questions. Tell us about ideas or specific projects and goals. Share thoughts and feelings. Your feedback is much appreciated!