What is NEAR Foundation?
NEAR Foundation is non-profit foundation headquartered in Switzerland that is responsible for contracting protocol maintainers, funding ecosystem development, and shepherding core governance of the NEAR protocol. NEAR is a carbon-neutral layer-1 blockchain network that is scalable and secure thanks to its unique implementation of sharding called Nightshade. NEAR is built with a focus on usability and ease of use, for both developers and users.The NEAR protocol is a sharded, proof-of-stake, layer-one blockchain that is simple to use, secure and scalable.