NEAR, the protocol’s native utility token, has surged bullishly as the partnership boosts sentiment.
The NEAR Foundation, the non-profit organization responsible for the development of the NEAR protocol, has reportedly partnered up with Alibaba Cloud, the computing and storage division of the Chinese tech behemoth.
The partnership gives the NEAR Foundation access to Alibaba Cloud’s developer ecosystem in Asia and the Middle East, with the aim of attracting more developers to build on the NEAR protocol. In a conversation with CoinDesk, Alibaba revealed the partnership will be significant for developers, who will be able to launch NEAR validators using Alibaba’s Cloud’s ‘plug-and-play’ infrastructure.
Other benefits of the partnership include offering remote procedure calls (RPC) as a service, allowing users to read blockchain data and send transactions across networks, in addition to multi-chain indexing, enabling developers to access data-query APIs.
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Raymond Xiao, head of international Web3 solutions at Alibaba Cloud, told CoinDesk, “The NEAR Foundation and Alibaba Cloud partnership is an important one as we continue to support Web3 developers to explore opportunities.”
He added, “It is also significant for developers and validators in the Asian markets, as they can leverage Alibaba Cloud’s comprehensive infrastructure in Asia.”
NEAR is up 9.2% following the announcement.
NEAR, the network’s native utility token, has responded bullishly to the news. It’s currently trading at $1.58, a 9.2% increase in the past three hours. Immediately following the announcement, the token topped $1.61.
NEAR has had a fairly volatile month, but prices are recovering. Throughout May, it traded within a range of $1.80-$1.60, dropping down to $1.20 for the first half of June. Since June 15 however, the token has climbed from $1.17 back up to $1.58.
NEAR’s partnership with Alibaba comes with the inauguration of its new Web3-invested CEO, Joseph Tsai.
Tsai was a minority shareholder in FTX, and over the past year he has invested in Polygon, Fast Break Labs and NFT platform Artifact Labs.
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