NEAR Protocol token hits all-time high on back of $150m funding round

The native NEAR Protocol (NEAR) token hit an all-time high on the back of the announcement by the project team of a new $150 million funding round led by venture capital firm Three Arrow Capital.

The project was also backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Alameda Research, Dragonfly Capital, and other investors.

The NEAR team will use the proceeds to accelerate broad Web 3.0 adoption by funding the ecosystem. Investments will also go toward developing regional hubs and marketing efforts.

According to the press release, since the mainnet launch in Q4 2020, the protocol has processed over 70 million transactions from 2.3 million addresses.

Sources at CoinDesk CoinDesk told the publication that at least two funds among the investors have taken on verbal commitments to provide liquidity to new DeFi projects built on NEAR Protocol.

The native NEAR token reacted to the investment news with gains. According to CoinGecko, in 24 hours its price rose 7.5%, over the past week — 26%. The asset touched a high above $19.7 on the Binance exchange.

As of writing, the token is trading near $19.4.

According to DeFi Llama, the total value locked in the NEAR Protocol DeFi ecosystem reached nearly $160 million. The largest project built on the protocol is the DeFi platform Ref Finance.

In December, the NEAR Protocol team announced the integration of the algorithmic stablecoin UST from the DeFi project Terra. Within a day, the native token price rose by more than 50%.

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