The NEAR Foundation, a non-profit organization responsible for developing and growing the NEAR protocol, has inked a partnership with Alibaba Cloud. The collaboration comes just days after it was revealed that crypto-friendly Joseph Tsai is set to replace long-time chief Daniel Zhang as Alibaba’s new Chairman.
NEAR Foundation Gains Access to Alibaba Cloud’s Developer Ecosystem
As part of the deal, the NEAR Foundation will gain access to Alibaba Cloud’s developer ecosystem in Asia and the Middle East. The crypto group will be able to use Alibaba’s computing and storage services to onboard more developers across these regions and accelerate Web3 adoption.
Moreover, developers looking to launch a new NEAR validator can do so with Alibaba Cloud’s “plug-and-play” infrastructure. The company will also offer remote procedure calls (RPC) as a service to developers and users in the NEAR ecosystem.
Remote Procedure Call (RPC) is a powerful technique for constructing distributed, client-server-based applications. It allows an application running on one computer to execute code on another without the programmer having to explicitly code the communication between the two machines.
Alibaba Cloud will also provide multi-chain indexing to offer developers a data-query application programming interface. Furthermore, it will allow users to use the NEAR Blockchain Operating System (BOS), a common layer for browsing and discovering Web3 products launched earlier this year.
“The NEAR Foundation and Alibaba Cloud partnership is an important one as we continue to support Web3 developers to explore opportunities,” Raymond Xiao, head of international Web3 solutions at Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, reportedly said in a statement.
Alibaba Group Welcomes New Crypto-Friendly Chairman
The recent partnership between Alibaba Cloud and the NEAR Foundation comes just days after it was revealed that crypto-friendly Joseph Tsai is set to replace long-time chief Daniel Zhang as Alibaba’s new Chairman. In a press release last week, the company said the appointment will take effect on September 10, 2023.
The leadership shuffle comes as Alibaba is undergoing the largest restructuring in its history. The e-commerce conglomerate will split into six companies encompassing standalone firms in cloud computing, logistics, e-Commerce, global e-commerce, media and entertainment, digital mapping, and food delivery.
However, inside the crypto community, Tsai’s appointment as Chairman has prompted speculations that the move may signal Alibaba’s intention to embrace Web3 and crypto. Tsai has been a vocal advocate of cryptocurrencies and digital assets.
In a December 2021 tweet, Tsai said he “loved crypto.” He has also participated in several fund-raising rounds, with investments in now-collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, popular Ethereum scaling solution Polygon, and NFT and metaverse platform Artifact Labs.
Alibaba Cloud Continues Crypto Partnerships
Alibaba Cloud has been on a streak this year with multiple crypto partnerships. In May, the company partnered with layer-1 blockchain Avalanche to provide Alibaba’s clients with Cloudverse, a launchpad intended to help businesses customize, launch, and maintain their own metaverse spaces on Avalanche’s blockchain.
Alibaba’s digital technology and intelligence division has also partnered with New York-based blockchain security company CertiK. The deal would allow CertiK to provide blockchain security services to cloud-based Web3 projects.
It is worth noting that Alibaba Cloud also offers Blockchain as a Service (BaaS), an enterprise-level platform service based on leading blockchain technologies. The service helps institutions build a blockchain environment to save the costs of operations and maintenance.
Meanwhile, the recent news has positively impacted the price of NEAR’s native token. At the time of writing, NEAR is trading at $1.58, up by 10.4% over the past day.
This article originally appeared on The Tokenist
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