First experience with NEAR protocol

I have been actually hearing about the NEAR protocol many times from one YouTuber to another YouTube channel. But I have never really get to approach it simply because there are too many protocols to test on.

Moreover, there are just not enough capital to experiment search for the best possible blockchain that will give a substantial good returns.

But thanks to @hooiyewlim who simply just will always look for the best crypto deals to get him good returns / loans, he has prompted me to look into the NEAR blockchain for DeFi

And I must say, they do look really promising!

Even stable coins they do look pretty good compared to other protocols.

BUT!

Before we even start to look into DeFi, we first need a NEAR wallet.

Which is relatively straight forward to make; HOWEVER, you do need to get some $NEAR ready in any centralised exchange first before you start, if you want your wallet to be relatively anonymous.

I was fortunate to acquire 1 NEAR before the pump suddenly started; so I could actually try and create a wallet to test this out.

To open a "free" account

1. Go to https://wallet.near.org/

2. Select "Create Account"
   

   

   

3. The interesting part of this protocol, is like the WAX wallet, where your wallet address is actually your unique username.
   It is just like a domain name, I supposed those who prefers to keep their unique (copyrighted) names, then it is better to have a quickly booked the username first before anyone hijack it first. 😅
   If your desired username is available it is in green colour; if it is taken, it will be in red.

   

   

4. Once you know your username is available, time to quickly reserve it.
   

   

   

5. It is always good to keep a passphrase instead of relying on emails. We do not know these days how secure email is; knowing that our emails are exposed to so many spam mails.
   

   

   

6. Copy the passphrase with the easy button, and paste it on a notepad if you don't have pen and paper.

   

   

7. The system will randomly choose a word in the passphrase so that you can key in and press "Verify & Complete".
   

   

   

8. Letting the system know you have an email / make a deposit (if you want to remain anonymous)
   

   

   

I actually chose "deposit a small amount" as I wanted to try of any DeFi available anyways. But for those who actually want to make it like a business account that has an official email address, then sending a one time email address would have been a better idea.

For those who chose prefers their wallet anonymous:

A temporary wallet address will be generated for you to deposit. The minum is 0.1 NEAR which means it is less than $3 (according to today's market) you can open an account without using email.

Last but not least, don't forget to claim your account!

That's it!

You are ready to take another step of adventure in DeFi space!

However, if you are less adventurous, you can just check out their staking facility where some of your $NEAR tokens can be staked automated compounding rewards.

How about you?

Do you know about the NEAR protocol? Would you venture out to check out what are the interesting things that this blockchain will bring to the table?

For those who are uncertain what NEAR is:

NEAR Protocol is a decentralized application (dApp) platform and Ethereum competitor that focuses on developer and user-friendliness. Its native NEAR tokens are used to pay for transaction fees and storage on the Near crypto platform.

Until then