Aurora Launches on NEAR Protocol, Providing Ethereum Layer-2 Experience
12.5.2021 15:00:00 EEST | Business Wire | Press release
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.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210512005215/en/
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
REPLY Unveils the New Editions of the Reply AI Music Contest and Reply AI Film Festival under the Theme “Imaginatio Nova”19.3.2026 10:00:00 EET | Press release
Reply [EXM, STAR: REY, ISIN: IT0005282865] confirms its commitment for 2026 to fostering dialogue between creativity, technology and artificial intelligence through the Reply AI Music Contest and the Reply AI Film Festival, the two international AI competitions open to creatives, filmmakers, musicians and innovation professionals from around the world. The theme of the 2026 edition, “Imaginatio Nova”, is an invitation to explore a new phase of imagination, where human creativity is renewed through technology. This approach views artificial intelligence not as a substitute for artistic talent, but as a catalyst for new visions, languages and expressive possibilities, capable of generating forms that did not previously exist. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260319315132/en/ These initiatives are part of the Reply Challenges, a programme of technological and creative competitions that reflects Reply’s commitment
Valeo Foods Group Accelerates Growth in Eastern Europe With Acquisition of Prestige-96, a Leading Bulgarian Sweet Baked Goods Player19.3.2026 09:00:00 EET | Press release
Valeo Foods Group, one of Europe’s leading producers of sweets, treats and snacks, today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire 100% of Prestige-96 AD (“Prestige”), a market-leading Bulgarian manufacturer of sweet baked goods. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260319225232/en/ Prestige-96 sandwich biscuits. Founded in 1996, Prestige is one of Bulgaria’s most established and trusted producers of biscuits, wafers and sweet snack products. Its portfolio features some of the country’s most recognisable local brands including - Naya (Ная), Hyper (Хайпър), Mirage (Мираж) and Roden Kray (Роден Край). Prestige employs approximately 450 people across its operations. The acquisition marks a significant milestone in Valeo Foods Group’s long-term growth strategy, focused on acquiring market-leading, iconic local brands as part of its continued European expansion. As Valeo Foods Group’s eighth acquisition sinc
SymphonyAI AI Platforms Deployed for Compliance Environment at Munich Re19.3.2026 08:32:00 EET | Press release
As regulatory expectations grow more complex and financial crime risks continue to evolve, SymphonyAI, a global leader in Vertical AI platforms, offers a centralized, enterprise-grade technology foundation designed to operate at global scale while meeting local regulatory requirements. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260319144999/en/ SymphonyAI supports Munich Re, one of the leading reinsurers, and subsidiaries through its financial crime platform, which combines domain-specific expertise with artificial intelligence to help financial institutions detect, investigate, and manage financial crime risk with greater precision and efficiency. “Integrated, production-scale financial crime platforms that can evolve with the risk landscape,” said John Edison, President of Financial Services, SymphonyAI. “Our work together with Munich Re reflects a shared focus on flexibility, performance, and long-term modernization,
Royal Moroccan Football Federation Acknowledges Decision Rendered by the CAF Appeals Committee18.3.2026 19:49:00 EET | Press release
The Royal Moroccan Football Federation (FRMF) wishes to reiterate that its appeal was never aimed at contesting the sporting merit or performance of the teams involved in this tournament, but solely to ensure the proper enforcement of competition regulations. The federation reaffirms its commitment to respecting the regulations, ensuring the clarity of the competitive framework and maintaining the stability of African football competitions. The Federation also wishes to commend all the nations that participated in this year’s edition of the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), which served as a significant moment for African football. The FRMF will issue a more comprehensive official statement in the coming days after a scheduled meeting of its governing bodies. Source: AETOSWire View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318763307/en/
SIMCON Unveils World’s First Large Engineering Model for Plastic Injection Moulding18.3.2026 19:05:00 EET | Press release
SIMCON today announced the launch of the Cadmould AI Solver, the world’s first Large Engineering Model for injection moulding. Co-developed with Emmi AI, the new transformer-based architecture delivers simulation results up to 1000 times faster than traditional numerical solvers. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260318680159/en/ SIMCON’s new Cadmould AI Solver delivers injection molding simulation results in seconds. By removing lengthy computation times, the tool enables engineers to dynamically explore thousands of design and process variations in a single day. Historically, lengthy computation times have acted as a bottleneck, limiting the number of design variations engineers can practically explore during the development process. The Cadmould AI Solver shatters this barrier by providing engineers with instant feedback on filling pattern, pressure, and temperature in seconds. What once required hours per si
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