The NEAR Foundation, the nonprofit organization behind the layer-1 NEAR Protocol, announced that the protocol now supports chain signatures, allowing users to access multiple chains from their NEAR account.
The chain signature network is partially secured by Eigenlayer, which is joining NEAR as a launch partner, according to a press release. Eigenlayer is an innovative project built on Ethereum.
“Since day one, the NEAR ecosystem has focused on simplifying access to Web3 for developers and regular users,” said Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR. “Chain Signatures is the next step in that journey, making it significantly easier to transact on any blockchain while defragging liquidity across the ecosystem.”
Developers can now build decentralized finance (DeFi) products that use assets from other chains without bridging those assets, the press release said.
The offering is the latest step towards NEAR’s ‘chain abstraction’ initiative, which aims to address user experience in crypto by simplifying the hurdles in a multichain environment.
NEAR’s native token (NEAR) has been rising in recent months, up about sevenfold since early October, including doubling in a week earlier this month.