Business Wire

Aurora Launches on NEAR Protocol, Providing Ethereum Layer-2 Experience

Share

Aurora, an Ethereum Layer-2 protocol that provides developers and users the experience of Ethereum on top of NEAR Protocol, a scalable blockchain-based developer platform, has officially launched. Aurora combines two pieces of technology to create a seamless experience: a full-featured Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) and a powerful cross-chain bridge. Developers can launch their Ethereum decentralized applications (dApps) on Aurora within minutes by linking to other Ethereum contracts and assets.

Due to increasing traffic in global network activity, Ethereum transaction fees have reached record highs. Aurora bypasses these growing costs by capping gas fees to ensure they do not infinitely increase, maintaining an average transaction cost of a few cents. Aurora manages to lower costs while radically speeding up transactions, which achieve finality within two seconds. Aurora lets developers deploy existing Solidity and Vyper contracts with no changes, while users can seamlessly access these applications using MetaMask and other Ethereum wallets. At the same time, ERC-20 tokens and contract data will be transferable from Ethereum to Aurora through the trustless Aurora bridge (based on the Rainbow Bridge). With low costs, best-in-class transaction finality, and scalability, Aurora redefines what is possible in the Ethereum ecosystem while also expanding NEAR’s ecosystem with the inclusion of every EVM-based application.

“With Aurora, Ethereum users can work with familiar applications while benefiting from the efficiency of NEAR, removing a steep financial barrier to entry for users and developers,” said Illia Polosukhin, Co-founder of NEAR Protocol. “Our goal is to create an interoperable future where the gaps between blockchains, developers and users are bridged. Aurora does just that by allowing for a seamless user experience and allowing for assets to pass uninterrupted between the Ethereum and NEAR blockchains, thereby merging economies and facilitating the development of creator communities that will bring this technology to the mainstream.”

Aurora is fully compatible with Ethereum 1.0, including base fees paid in ETH and out-of-the-box operability with all existing wallets and other tools. To start using Aurora, please visit https://aurora.dev.

About Aurora

Aurora is an Ethereum Layer-2 built on top of NEAR Protocol. Aurora delivers 1000x lower transaction fees compared to Ethereum and sub-two-second transaction finalization. Aurora is fully interoperable with Ethereum, with ETH used as a base token and all existing Ethereum tools usable out of the box. Aurora includes the trustless Rainbow bridge, allowing for bidirectional transfers of any information from Ethereum, including ERC-20s. To learn more about Aurora, please visit https://aurora.dev.

About NEAR Protocol

NEAR Protocol is a blockchain-based, ultra-scalable, developer-friendly platform for decentralized applications. NEAR’s platform provides decentralized storage and compute that is secure enough to manage high value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people, putting the power of the Open Web in their hands.

NEAR Protocol uses a technique called “sharding” which splits the network into multiple pieces so that the computation is done in parallel. Parallelism radically increases throughput and allows the network to scale up as the number of nodes on it increases. With NEAR, there isn’t a theoretical limit on the network’s capacity.

Core contributors of NEAR have won multiple world championships in competitive programming and worked at major tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Niantic. To learn more about the NEAR Protocol, please visit https://near.org.

To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.

Contact information

KC Maas
near@wachsman.com

About Business Wire

For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.

Subscribe to releases from Business Wire

Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Latest releases from Business Wire

SCENTMATIC's AI "KAORIUM" Debuts at THAMEEN Fragrance Launch in London's Selfridges4.7.2025 12:13:00 EEST | Press release

SCENTMATIC Inc., a leader in scent digitalization, introduced its AI-powered scent-to-language system, KAORIUM, at the THAMEEN Fragrance new product launch event. This pivotal event took place from June 5 to 11, 2025, at Selfridges department store in London, UK. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250703662207/en/ State of exhibition Global Expansion: KAORIUM Establishes UK Presence Europe leads the global fragrance market, with the UK projected to reach US$2.82 billion by 2033. Recognizing this, SCENTMATIC is rapidly expanding its international footprint. In May 2024, SCENTMATIC established its overseas subsidiary, KAORIUM, in London, appointing industry expert Ben Yanoushek as CEO. Official UK operations commenced on February 1, 2025, with the launch of its dedicated website: www.kaorium.com. KAORIUM Trialed at "Florentine Diamond" Launch Event The "Florentine Diamond" launch event for luxury brand THAMEEN Frag

Global Tourism Surging Ahead of Economic Growth, With Visits to Hit 30 Billion by 20344.7.2025 02:00:00 EEST | Press release

The World Economic Forum has today published a new report forecasting that the travel and tourism industry is projected to serve 30 billion tourist trips by 2034. Travel and Tourism at a Turning Point: Principles for Transformative Growth, produced in collaboration with Kearney and the Ministry of Tourism Saudi Arabia, reveals a projected $16 trillion contribution to global GDP by the same year—representing more than 11% of the total world economy, according to World Travel & Tourism Council estimates. The report also found that the sector is expanding 1.5 times faster than the global economy, generating significant commercial opportunities as long as the mounting challenges of climate change, labour shortages and infrastructure gaps are addressed. Inbound and outbound trips increasing fast Asia is on track to become the world’s fastest-growing tourism economy, with the direct travel and tourism GDP contribution expected to exceed 7% across the region by 2034. Notably, India and China

The 2025-2026 World Branding Awards Animalis Edition Honouring Leading Pet and Animal Brands Globally3.7.2025 22:00:00 EEST | Press release

The 2025-2026 World Branding Awards Animalis Edition marked its fifth instalment, bringing together leading pet and animal brands from all around the world. These brands were celebrated for their outstanding achievements, earning recognition as National, Regional, and Global Winners. The awards ceremony, held at Vienna's prestigious Hofburg Palace, welcomed winners across diverse categories, including pet food, retail, wellness, pet exhibitions, and aquatic products. Mounia Berrada-Gouzi expertly hosted the evening, which culminated in a grand celebration of brand excellence. “The Animalis Edition of the World Branding Awards recognises brands that have achieved the highest distinction—genuine recognition in the hearts and minds of consumers. Tonight, we honour those whose names resonate globally, whose values inspire loyalty, and whose presence defines excellence in the pet and animal industry,” said Richard Rowles, Chairman of the World Branding Forum. Out of over 950 brands nominate

Venture Global Announces 20-Year Sales and Purchase Agreement with PETRONAS3.7.2025 15:59:00 EEST | Press release

Today, Venture Global, Inc. (NYSE: VG) announced the execution of a new 20-year Sales and Purchase Agreement (SPA) with PETRONAS LNG Ltd. (PLL), a subsidiary of the Malaysian state-owned oil and gas company, PETRONAS. Under the terms of the SPA, PETRONAS will purchase 1 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Venture Global’s third facility, CP2 LNG, for 20 years. This builds upon Venture Global’s existing agreement with PETRONAS for 1 MTPA of LNG supply from Plaquemines LNG. PETRONAS, a world-class partner in the LNG industry, joins other CP2 LNG customers in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world in a strategically important project to global energy supply and security. To date, approximately 10.75 MTPA of the 14.4 MTPA nameplate capacity for CP2 Phase One has been sold. About Venture Global Venture Global is a long-term, low-cost provider of U.S. LNG sourced from resource rich North American natural gas basins. Venture Global’s business includes assets ac

Frost & Sullivan Recognizes Novotech as 2025 Global Biotech CRO Company of the Year3.7.2025 15:05:00 EEST | Press release

In recognition of its innovation, client-focused delivery, and global impact, Novotech has been awarded the 2025 Global Biotechnology Contract Research Organization (CRO) Company of the Year by Frost & Sullivan. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250703950144/en/ Novotech Wins Global CRO Award Novotech is a globally recognized full-service clinical CRO and scientific advisory firm, trusted by biotech and small- to mid-sized pharmaceutical companies to advance their drug development programs at every phase. With a global footprint spanning Asia-Pacific, North America, and Europe, Novotech supports over 5,000 clinical trial sites and a distributed team of experts delivering seamless, end-to-end solutions across geographies. “Novotech is redefining biotech-focused clinical research through AI-driven innovation, global expansion, and a client-embedded partnership model. With a clear vision to be the CRO of choice for

In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.

Visit our pressroom
World GlobeA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.HiddenA line styled icon from Orion Icon Library.Eye