This is the NEAR Foundation's first foray into the institutional investing field, despite the current crypto bear market.
BitGo, a California-based digital asset firm founded in 2013, has recently announced that it would be joining forces with the NEAR Foundation on a blockchain-related initiative.
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According to the official announcement issued on July 19th, as part of the deal, BitGo, having already processed around 20% of all Bitcoin (BTC) transactions around the globe, will support NEAR’s native token dubbed NEAR, as well as its assets and network.
On top of that, the report read that the holders of NEAR tokens will have the ability to custody and stake the tokens through BitGo’s hot and custodial wallets.
Nuri Chang, BitGo’s vice president of product, mentioned that the institutional crypto custody company is keen on working with the NEAR Foundation, a Switzerland-based non-profit organization ensuring sustainable development of the protocol.
Chang also noted that BitGo would be also looking to expand its partnership list and look for similar leading blockchains in the crypto industry. Likewise, Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation, commented on the collaboration and stated that this was a huge step for the open-source platform for decentralized applications (dApps). He added:
“With BitGo, we will support their clients’ investors and give them the ability to stake and earn rewards on their NEAR assets, both safely and securely. We are also putting our confidence into BitGo and putting our own treasury in its custody because it is simply the best at what it does.”
BitGo, backed by DRW, Craft Ventures, Digital Currency Group, Goldman Sachs, Galaxy Digital Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, and Valor Equity Partners, is currently supporting more than 500 tokens. The company serves institutional investors in over 50 countries by providing liquidity and custody services.
The NEAR Protocol (NEAR) token is currently sitting at $4.56, with a 3.06% increase in the past 24 hours.
In other news, earlier in January, the NEAR Protocol secured $150M in a funding round led by a venture capital firm Three Arrows Capital to expand into global markets.
