$350 million grants A16Z-backed blockchain gets vehicle for DeFi

Proximity Labs, a research and development firm, announced the creation of a $350 million grants vehicle to help build decentralised-finance applications on the NEAR blockchain, where it is focusing its efforts.

The vehicle, a decentralised autonomous organisation, or DAO, aims to distribute the money in NEAR tokens over about four years in amounts ranging from about $5,000 to several million dollars, Proximity’s announcement said. The grants DAO is open to all DeFi projects, it said.

DeFi projects such as Curve, Sushi, Dodo and Kyber have launched or are in the process of doing so on NEAR’s blockchain, which is designed to be fast, secure and infinitely scalable. —