by Lydia Ludmila 
It’s almost hard to believe that the NEAR Wallet had only 2 million users at the start of this year. At over 20 million users, NEAR is thrilled to mark its wallet’s tenfold growth in less than a year. NEAR is really creating without limits!
This meteoric rise can be attributed to a number of factors, including growing support among builders for NEAR’s user-friendly, highly scalable, climate neutral blockchain. But also instrumental in this growth is NEAR’s epic partnership with companies such as SWEAT Economy, the world’s most popular fitness app.
Largest ever on-ramping of Web2 users into Web3
At the moment, over 800 projects are building on NEAR, which uses Proof-of-Stake consensus to secure and validate transactions on the blockchain. NEAR has also lowered barriers for creators with developments such as the launch of Javascript SDK. This gives over 20 million developers the chance to build Web3 apps using JavaScript, the most popular coding language in the world.
In September, Sweat Economy—the “economy of movement”—successfully launched on NEAR with the largest ever airdrop to active, opted-in, wallets. The Move-to-Earn platform, active in Web2 since 2016 with over 130 million global users of its Sweatcoin app, distributed their new Web3 SWEAT token to 13.5M token holders. The Sweat Wallet app quickly became the #1 most downloaded Finance app in more than 50 countries. This follows Sweat’s success as the fastest IDO ever to sell out on the DAO Maker platform.
Sweat Economy distributed over 4.7 Billion of its newly launched SWEAT tokens to the 13.5M Sweatcoin users who opted to enter Web3. For many of these users, it is their first experience with blockchain technology, making this the largest ever on-ramping of self-custody users from Web2 to Web3.
“It’s been an extraordinary year for NEAR as we ramp up efforts to attract the world’s best and socially-minded developers on our protocol,” says Marieke Flament, CEO of NEAR Foundation. “We have put our emphasis on championing talent diversity, regional hub development, and sustainable practices. Equally important to our success is the strategic partnerships we have forged with prominent companies that have done a brilliant job at transitioning from a Web2 business model to Web3.”
Onboarding 1 billion users to Web3
This transition is particularly important as NEAR works hard to onboard one billion users to Web3.
“Sweat Economy is one of these companies that have made it easy for people to access Web3 applications with the help of NEAR, which has led to millions of users for its product and for our protocol,” Flament adds. “ These partnerships are key to helping us to realize our ambition to achieve mass adoption for crypto and to show the world that Web3 is capable of solving real world problems and making society a better place for all.”
If you still have yet to join the “economy of movement,” head to your mobile app store and download Sweatcoin today and see how millions of people are earning crypto just by being physically active. Join NEAR and Sweat Economy to build a healthier collective future.
