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Near Vakfı, despite the significant growth of leading altcoin project NEAR Protocol (NEAR) in 2023, announced that it will reduce its workforce by approximately 40%. According to Near Foundation’s CEO Illia Polosukhin, the layoffs will primarily affect the marketing, business development, and community teams. Polosukhin emphasized that despite the decision to reduce the number of employees, the project’s treasury is strong.
NEAR Foundation to Reduce Workforce by 40%
Near Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting the Near ecosystem, announced that it will reduce its workforce by approximately 40%. NEAR Protocol’s co-founder and CEO of the Near Foundation, Illia Polosukhin, stated today that the layoffs will primarily affect the marketing, business development, and community teams, impacting 35 employees.
Polosukhin noted that the decision to lay off staff came after a recent review, which indicated that the Foundation’s operations were not effective enough, moved too slowly, or tried to do too much at once. “Following the review, we decided to significantly reduce the core Foundation team to focus on a narrower and more impactful set of activities,” he said.
Despite the reduction in workforce, Polosukhin highlighted that the Near Foundation’s treasury remains strong and well-managed, with $285 million in cash, 305 million NEAR tokens valued at $1.1 billion, and $70 million in investments and loans. “The Foundation is in a very good position to continue supporting the ongoing growth, development, and further decentralization of the NEAR Protocol and its ecosystem,” he said.
NEAR Protocol Experienced Significant Growth in 2023
The decision to lay off staff comes despite NEAR Protocol hosting some of the best applications in Web3 and recording a high number of daily users, indicating a strong 2023 for the NEAR ecosystem.
In a blog post dated December 20, 2023, Polosukhin mentioned that according to DappRadar, four of the top ten applications in Web3 were built on NEAR Protocol, and the number of daily active users had surpassed one million. “With 7 million monthly active accounts, a total of 35 million accounts, and an average of over 2 million transactions per day, the NEAR ecosystem has seen significant usage growth this year,” he stated.
Data shows that the average number of daily transactions on the protocol increased approximately 15 times during 2023, from 312,000 to 4.9 million, corroborating the CEO of Near Foundation. Additionally, the number of daily average new wallet addresses on the network also showed a similar increase during the same period.
Polosukhin argued that the layoffs are part of a longer-term decentralization plan, saying, “Over time, as the ecosystem becomes more decentralized and various nodes become more active across the network and the ecosystem as a whole, the Foundation’s footprint will continue to shrink.”
