Aurora

What is Aurora?

Aurora serves as a solution enabling the execution of Ethereum contracts in a more efficient setting—the NEAR blockchain. NEAR is a contemporary layer-1 blockchain known for its speed (2-3 second transaction finalization), scalability, and environmentally friendly nature. Implemented as a smart contract on the NEAR Protocol, Aurora operates as an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Our aim is to facilitate the expansion of the Ethereum ecosystem by providing developers with a platform to run their applications on an Ethereum-compatible, high-throughput, scalable, and future-proof infrastructure, featuring low transaction costs for users.

Aurora delivers the development experience of Ethereum 1.0 but with the speed and scalability resembling layer-2 solutions. For Ethereum developers, transitioning to Aurora is a straightforward process—simply by adjusting the RPC endpoint used for interaction.

Compatibility is a key feature of Aurora, supporting all tools within the Ethereum ecosystem, such as MetaMask, Truffle, Hardhat, Remix, and more. Moreover, NEAR's trustless bridge to Ethereum ensures that assets on Aurora mirror those on Ethereum. For instance, account balances in Aurora's EVM are denominated in the same Ether (ETH) as on the Ethereum network itself.

---

Recent Video Interview

Main points of the interview:

• The inception of Aurora Labs from the Near Protocol project.
• Aurora Cloud's role in simplifying blockchain onboarding for developers.
• The importance of blockchain in enhancing user engagement in gaming.
• Encourages collaboration among blockchain communities for technological advancement.

---

The Aurora EVM

Initially developed in-house at NEAR, the Aurora EVM serves as the official Ethereum Virtual Machine for the NEAR ecosystem. It achieves a 1:1 experience with the Ethereum protocol, incorporating ETH as its base currency. Beyond its fundamental scope, the EVM enables extra precompiles, facilitating interaction with the broader NEAR ecosystem.

The current implementation of the Aurora EVM harnesses the capabilities of SputnikVM. Additionally, a segment of the Aurora Labs team has contributed significantly to the project, earning recognition as contributors. However, there are plans to explore alternative implementations and potentially develop a proprietary backend based on performance considerations.

Advantages of Aurora Chains

Elimination of Additional Validators: When a user's Aurora Chain is deployed, it automatically inherits all validators from the NEAR Blockchain, surpassing 300 in number.

Configurability: Users can configure their chain by establishing whitelists, selecting custom tokens, defining gas mechanics, integrating KYC procedures, and more.

Comprehensive Ecosystem: Aurora Cloud provides a variety of integrations, such as the Rainbow Bridge, on-ramps, indexers, oracles, DEXes, etc. These integrations can be deployed to the chain, expediting the development process.

Business Focus: The technical aspects of integration and support are entirely managed by the Aurora Labs team.

Seamless Interoperability: Aurora Chains offer smooth interoperability with Aurora, NEAR, and any other Aurora Chains. Users can freely move their assets using the Rainbow Bridge and call contracts via cross-contract calls (XCC), without any disjointedness. This allows users to interact freely with any smart contract in other Aurora Chains or NEAR.

Top-notch TPS: Aurora Chains can provide users with dozens of millions of transactions daily for their ecosystem, achieving a transaction processing speed of 1,000+ transactions per second.

Established Reputation: Many big-name projects are already building on Aurora, such as The Graph, Curve, Gnosis Safe, Synapse, Covalent.

Aurora Team Background

Aurora Labs is led by CEO Dr. Alex Shevchenko, a Ph.D. in physics and math, entrepreneur, and blockchain enthusiast. CTO Arto Bendiken, with 20+ years of experience, is an autodidact, cypherpunk, and open-source author. Head of Security & Infrastructure Frank Braun, a Ph.D. in computer science, has 20+ years of experience in building software systems, including encrypted messaging and digital currencies.

Aurora Project Development

From its inception, Aurora Plus has served as the gateway to the expansive Aurora ecosystem, introducing diverse possibilities offered by blockchain technology.

In its latest phase, Aurora Plus unveils a new feature: Lending & Borrowing. Developed in collaboration with Aurigami, a leading lending and borrowing protocol on Aurora, this addition simplifies the lending and borrowing experience for new DeFi users, aligning with the mission to drive widespread adoption of blockchain technology.

With this enhancement, Aurora Plus users can now earn yields by depositing assets directly through the Aurora Plus interface into Aurigami's protocol. This integration offers a secure and straightforward method to maximize the potential of digital assets, transforming idle holdings into active yield generators. The feature supports deposits in five of the most popular assets, including ETH and USDC.

Aurora Price Analysis

As of May 25 2025 Aurora has a marketcap of $55M. This is {{percentagefromath}} from its all time high of $35.40. In terms of its tokenomics, there's a total supply of 1B with 61% currently outstanding. Keep in mind Aurora has a fully diluted value of $91M which many investors might interpret as overvalued.

Of course, don’t trust price predictions alone, always check the Coinrotator token screener to follow the trending market.