The Near ecosystem is popping off and it would be prudent to learn how and to act on that knowledge when it comes to bridging/rotating your crypto.

Near has its own blockchain and has created a layer 2 solution for its chain, called Aurora. It should be noted that this chain is EVM (Ethereum virtual machine) compatible which allows developers to essentially copy paste their projects from Ethereum to the Near ecosystem easily. 

Aurora is just a smart contract on the Near blockchain which is absolutely insane. In case you are unfamiliar with the term “layer 2”, it basically is a way to address scalability issues and still ensure security. These layer 2s helped to increase the transaction speeds as well as help reduce the gas fees. Think of it as a chain built on top of the base chain. 

Now in order to engage in this ecosystem, you will need to bridge funds to it. In this case, we will be using the Rainbow bridge. This bridge is the official bridge used for bridging tokens between Ethereum, Near and Aurora. I used this bridge sending funds from Ethereum (which is usually so costly with gas prices) and it was really cheap, costing maybe $13! 

Here are a list of some tokens that can be bridged over, to name a few:

• ETH (Ethereum)
• USDC (most stablecoins)
• AAVE
• AURORA
• LINK
• WBTC

You will need to first add the Aurora mainent to your Metamask. This can be done by going to Trisolaris, a project on Aurora, and clicking the prompts to connect your wallet and then adding the mainnet to your Metamask. You can apply this quick trick to quickly add new mainnets to your Metamask.

If you thought the cheap bridging fees, amazing opportunities was good enough then you are going to LOVE the gassless transactions. The fees will usually be paid in ETH however since the fees are currently free you do not need to worry about gas, yet. This is a great opportunity to build a portfolio and possibly be early to the ecosystem while not having your funds eaten by gas fees. Of course, none of this is finance advice but I am very bullish on Near and the Auorora ecosystem. Let's see what the coming few months hold for us.