NEAR Foundation CEO Marieke Flament Steps Down

• General counsel Chris Donovan will succeed Flament as CEO.
• Flament also shared that the Near Foundation’s current treasury balance is 330 million NEAR.

Near Foundation’s CEO and developer of the layer-1 protocol, Marieke Flament, has stepped down. On September 21st, Near Foundation announced that general counsel Chris Donovan will succeed Flament as CEO.

Flament did not provide a detailed explanation for why she was leaving. Until the end of the year, Flament will continue to serve as Donovan’s strategic advisor. Flament will continue to work at the foundation in a board advisory capacity.

Flament stated:

“Two years ago, I had never heard of NEAR. Upon doing a bit of research and after several conversations it became clear that NEAR had a tremendous potential – fantastic tech, a diverse and vibrant community and a world of open possibilities, and so I joined.”

Positive Developments

Flament claims that the number of daily active users of Near Protocol increased from 50,000 to 3 million between 2021 and 2023, and that the number of people following Near Protocol on Twitter increased from 200,000 to over 2 million over the same time period.

Within this time frame, Near signed partnerships with several companies. In June, Skoda Auto, a Czech automaker, unveiled a Near Protocol-based non-fungible token (NFT) platform.

Flament also shared that the Near Foundation’s current treasury balance is 330 million NEAR, or around $350 million. At a market valuation of about $1.06 billion, NEAR is the 40th biggest crypto.  The price of NEAR at the time of writing is $1.13, up 0.42% in the last 24 hours as per data from CMC.

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