Near Announces the Blockchain Operating System
NEAR FOUNDATION
March 2, 2023
Near announced today that it is becoming the Blockchain Operating System (BOS). The BOS is an industry-first category: a common layer for browsing and discovering open web experiences, compatible with any blockchain. 

The Blockchain Operating System will make Near the entry point for the Open Web, for users and developers alike. And it will make both Web3 and Web2 easier than ever to access and navigate. 

Becoming more than just a blockchain 
Since inception, Near’s mission has been to onboard 1 billion users to the Open Web. The first step in the journey was to focus on building a best in class L1 blockchain that was easy to build on and easy to use. 

Near was designed to be simple, with a flexible account model and human readable accounts — any name a user wants instead of a string of letters and numbers. And with Near’s Nightshade sharding approach, the Near blockchain was designed to be infinitely scalable and secure. At the same time, Near concentrated on building out tooling to support builders developing on the protocol, including the JavaScript SDK that now gives 15 million developers access to building on Near. 

This has created and sustained a thriving Near ecosystem with more than 23 million accounts and over a thousand project building, but these were only the first steps toward delivering the vision of Web3 to a mainstream audience.

Now, Near is building up the Web3 stack to integrate experiences from across the open web and streamline the discovery and onboarding experience for users and developers alike. 

Enter Near: the Blockchain Operating System 
Today, Near is launching near.org — a composable frontend for Web3. It will allow end users to easily and frictionlessly discover all of Web3’s possibilities in one seamless experience. It will also empower developers to create and code interfaces in a single environment with the ability to fork a host of components to build apps faster, and more efficiently than ever before.

Anyone in the Open Web ecosystem can create their own frontends (i.e., their own versions of near.org), compatible with the blockchain of their choice. This means that builders from any ecosystem can create components in just a few lines of code, and take advantage of fast onboarding to help make new and custom Web3 experiences.

This is an industry first. With the addition of composable frontends to the tech stack, Near now becomes the Blockchain Operating System, allowing seamless, one-time onboarding and removing friction points like making accounts for every experience, while supercharging development from a collection of over 1,800 components. 

Near.org is the first step in Near’s Blockchain Operating System journey. It’s the Alpha version, where builders can see the frontend come to life. 

Try it out at near.org to experience the world’s first Blockchain Operating System — a revolutionary moment in Web3. If you’re a developer, see how easy it is to fork components and create new experiences. If you’re an end user, see how easy it is to explore Web3 experiences, social, and news all in one place. 

The Blockchain Operating System is Near and it’s here. #NearistheBOS