AURORA is NEAR

6 min readMay 22, 2022

LAYER-2 ETH SOLUTION ON NEAR. image credit to near.org

Everything we know and think today about the future is NEAR, and as a NEARan, I am fully persuaded beyond all reasonable doubt that #TheFutureIsNEAR and Aurora is indeed the future. The purpose of this article is to enlighten the entire blockchain community and enthusiasts about Aurora, an EVM compatible Layer-2 built on NEAR. Before I get deep into the NEAR and Aurora rabbit-hole, I must also at this juncture acknowledge and put the global coin research

community right next to aurora in the spot light of this article, for all the resourceful research contents, a great tokenized community of web3 investors and learners. This article is indeed as a result of GCR’s commitment to learning and web3, you should check out the GCR DAO Portfolio.

The Future Is NEAR and its Layer 1 “ish”

If you are an Engineer, and have spent some interesting time within the blockchain ecosystem, you would have realized that the top languages used on NEAR Protocol are Rust, Typescript, JavaScript, Python and CSS. If you don’t already know this, here’s a link.

We all need to categorically understand that NEAR Protocol is built to archive great adoption, ( by developers, creators and end users) scalability and the best transaction fee possible. And also its a pretty fast technology that has put into consideration the 7.9 billions humans on this planet, which is why NEAR is Ecofriendly. To understand NEAR Protocol’s rapid and pragmatic iteration to its approach to development in relation to other blockchain, It’s my considered opinion that you find the time to go through the NEAR white paper, there you will understand in black and white, That NEAR Protocol is a decentralized layer-1 application platform.

What is Layer 1

Layer 1 are base networks. This blockchain can validate and finalize transactions without the need for another network, with a fundamental difficulty of making improvements to its scalability.

NEAR solved the Blockchain Trilemma by implementing a horizontal scaling feature called sharding!! Sharding is not completely unique to NEAR Protocol, as the Ethereum 2.0 is considering Re-sharding on the Ethereum network, the difference is NEAR’s blockchain dynamically adjusts the number of shards used, this way NEAR can reduce the average cost of using the network while maintaining the potential for high transaction throughout. Dynamic sharding works by allowing all charges be priced the same, therefore removing the price distinction between cross-shard and intra-shard transactions.

What is Layer 2

The NEAR’s blockchain has scaled and continue to scale exponentially. And the protocol records more users daily, at this point, a typical layer 1 network then becomes bogged down with traffic. The traffic on some of these typical blockchain networks leads to high fees and slow processing times. this is where a layer 2 blockchain comes in, to mitigate congestion. These secondary blockchains (Layer 2) works in conjunction with the main blockchain ( layer 1). The purpose of a layer 2 blockchain/protocol is to have virtually no capacity limits, increase transaction speeds, lower fees, and make Layer 1 blockchain more efficient.

AURORA On NEAR

This is where it gets interesting. One would assume aurora is a typical layer 2 protocol, and further assume that aurora was developed and deployed to ease transaction efficiency and to reduce transaction fee on NEAR Protocol! This assumptions are the lowest form of the knowledge the entire blockchain community needs, to understand the purpose, potential, scalability and for lack of a better word, the seamless integrations and partnerships that must exist between NEAR Protocol and other Layer 1 and Layer 2 protocols.

You see that indeed! #AuroraIsNEAR ……discord server.

What I am trying to say is “ Aurora is an EVM built on the NEAR Protocol, delivering a turn-key solution for developers to operate their apps on an Ethereum-compatible, high-throughput, scalable and future-safe platform, with low transaction costs for their users.’’ -Autofarm network.

THE LAYER 2 MIRACLE. image credit to near.org

Aurora is nothin short of a layer 2 miracle, the protocol has two core components: the Aurora Engine runtime, that allows the seamless deployment of all Solidity and Vyper smart contracts, and the Aurora Bridge (based on the Rainbow Bridge technology), providing for the permissionless transfer of tokens and data between (note this!)Ethereum and Aurora.

What is an EVM?

Ethereum Virtual Machine.

An EVM is the foundation on which the Ethereum operating structure runs, the EVM is also responsible for the deployment of some functionalities to the Blockchain to ensure users face limited issues on the distributed ledger. And also every Ethereum node must run on the EVM to maintain consensus across the entire blockchain. The EVM is also completely isolated, this mean that the code inside the EVM has no access to network, file system or other processes.

Aurora as an EVM

Aurora is the same as the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), but implemented as a smart contract on NEAR Protocol. NEAR is determined to scale the Ethereum ecosystem for solidity developers to operate their apps on an Ethereum-compatible, high-throughput, scalable, and future-safe platform, with low transaction costs for their users.

Advantages of Aurora to NEAR’s Layer 1 Blockchain.

Aurora’s EVM, makes it possible for Ethereum native applications to seamlessly be ported to NEAR’s L2-like network that is built as a smart contract on NEAR.
The base fee of Aurora is ETH, which provides a smooth experience for Dapps’ users.
Arora’s rainbow bridge allows users to transfer assets between Ethereum, NEAR, and Aurora. Several integrations of bridges from/to other networks have been launched as well, and more are in the NEARest future.
Features on NEAR Protocol, such as delegated Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism and dynamic re-sharding (Nightshade), allows unprecedented transaction speeds and scalability in a fully Ethereum-compatible environment.

To extend the Ethereum ecosystem, Aurora believes that the proper solution should be as simple as possible, to give projects the most seamless migration. The assets on Aurora are the same as Ethereum because of NEAR’s trustless bridge . For example, account balances in Aurora’s EVM are denominated in the same Ether (ETH) as on Ethereum itself.

**AURORA’s Lifecycle**. image credit to near.org

#Auroraisnear is not a bed-time tech story, AURORA is actually NEAR, and the future itself is NEAR. Indeed, Aurora is the Future that is NEAR.