May 2, 2022
Identity & Decision Making on NEAR
OWS Education / NEAR Basics
Hello everyone! Welcome to the fifth part of ‘NEAR Basics’ issue which is a part of educational series created by the Open Web Sandbox team. In this chapter we will talk about the creation of a wallet on NEAR and ways to use it for an on-chain decision making, for example on DAO’s. We have already discussed private and public keys and DAO’s in general in our previous issue ‘Blockchain Basics’ so check that out if you would like to know more. Let’s get started!
Public/private keys
As we explained in the piece dedicated to identity and decision-making from the ‘Blockchain Basics’, wallets allow users to make decisions on-chain, including sending and receiving funds and using DApps — basically all actions that create transactions. Of course, NEAR Protocol has it’s own wallet too. Seeing as there are already plenty of instructions on how to create a wallet on NEAR out there, we decided to not go down that lane; instead we have linked the most detailed instructions here. Just follow these simple steps and you will be able to create your very own NEAR Wallet!
NEAR Wallet’s features
There are several features and interesting details about the NEAR Wallet that we would like to swiftly touch upon. First of all, NEAR Wallet is user friendly — creation process is extremely intuitive and the website’s interface is comprehensible too even if you are only at the beginning of your adventure with NEAR Protocol. Another remarkable feature is that you may choose your own wallet address which will look like “anywordofyourchoice.near”. Compared to the wallet names of other protocols which traditionally consist of numeric combinations, such wallet name increases user experience of all users.
NEAR wallet exists only in a web version, there is no mobile application available just yet. However, the website is perfectly smartphone friendly.
NEAR Protocol uses a ‘Proof of Stake’ consensus, thus it is no surprise that all users can stake their NEAR straight in their wallets without using any other DApps. Staking generally helps to secure the NEAR network and can generate some return on the staked tokens. Here you can the article where more detailed information about staking in the NEAR wallet is provided.
Last but not least remark on the NEAR wallets: make sure to write down the seed phrase and save your recovery links. Both are only generated and sent once, upon creation. Do not share them with anyone.
NEAR Explorer
There is also a way to view all transactions made on NEAR. On the website of NEAR explorer you can find general information about all kinds of transactions made within the NEAR network like the amount of transactions completed during the past 24 hours, gas fees, information on nodes and such. Besides, you can check any wallet’s details for example the account’s balance, staking information, creation date and more.
DAOs on NEAR
Let’s talk about DAO’s on NEAR now. You can find the article about the general theory behind the concept of Decentralized Autonomous Organisations in our previous issue. If you would like to know more, there is also a link to the detailed deep dive into DAO’s written by the NEAR Team.
On NEAR, Sputnik DAO is a hub for all DAO’s from the ecosystem. In September 2021, AstroDAO platform which is an updated version of SputnikDAO was launched. New hub got a couple of new functions, such as role-based voting and polls (many more are still being developed so it is a work in progress!) and became much more user friendly. Astro created more flexibility for governance of individual communities within the NEAR Ecosystem.
You can find an overview of all DAO’s, which there are hundreds by now, on the AstroDAO website.
Types of DAO
Nowadays users of AstroDAO can choose between 4 different types of DAO’s which differ between themselves in structure and voting power:
- Foundation: anyone can submit a proposal to such DAO even without being a member of one, however specific members get to vote on specific proposals and every member has one vote.
- Members only: only members or DAO token holders can submit the proposal, all members can vote on all proposals and every member has one vote.
- Corporation: only members or DAO token holders can submit the proposal, specific members get to vote on specific proposals and the amount of tokens members posses influences their voting power.
- Cooperative: only members or DAO token holders can submit the proposal, specific members get to vote on specific proposals and every member has one vote.
Other features
To launch the AstroDAO app, NEARians will have to connect their wallets to the DApp which will allow them to perform further actions on AstroDAO. Each time they would want to perform a certain action on DAO, they will need to confirm it through your NEAR wallet.
AstroDAO users can create voting tokens that can be distributed among members for a governance facilitation. There are also possibilities to adopt farm tokens or even NEAR tokens for the same purposes.
There is also a possibility to create bounties — tasks or projects that DAO would like to have completed. Rewards for such bounties are transferred to the contributor through DAO upon completion.
Polls are another function that supports decentralized governance on NEAR by facilitating the process of collection of public opinions. Members can vote for or against certain initiative and share their opinions on different subjects.
To add even more flexibility for the governance of communities on NEAR, AstroDAO allows to divide DAO members of the same community into different groups. This is done to split voting power of members between different types of proposals, which can be especially useful for large communities.
Creating your own DAO is very simple too — you can just follow the instructions and do so in less than 10 minutes.
In this chapter we talked about identity and decision-making on NEAR through NEAR Wallets and DAO’s. In the next part of this batch we will talk about Money and Finance on NEAR and will discuss several DeFi projects building on NEAR. See you there!
About Open Web Sandbox
A human-centric digital hub for everyone wishing to engage with projects building on top of the NEAR Protocol.
Written by Vasilya.
