Near Protocol Integrates With Institutional-Grade Digital Asset Management Platform GK8

Bitcoin, the world’s first and largest market cap blockchain, was built as a decentralized ledger, a database meant first and foremost for transaction data. Ethereum pushed the concept further by introducing smart contracts, and decentralized applications stored on-chain as executable code, which enabled the rise of decentralized finance services.

NEAR Protocol is the next-generation, fast, and high-throughput infrastructure for decentralized ecosystems, where any data asset can be programmable and creators can use a robust development toolset to create the open economy of the future. 

GK8 is a blockchain cybersecurity company that offers financial institutions an end-to-end platform for managing blockchain-based assets on their own. Its solution incorporates the world’s first true air-gapped Cold Vault that enables its clients to create, sign, and send secure blockchain transactions without internet connectivity as well as a highly-scalable MPC warm vault. GK8 now updates its institutional-grade digital asset management platform with NEAR Protocol support.

The integration expands the versatility of GK8’s regulation-ready custody platform, an end-to-end solution that includes the only true Cold Vault in the market along with a high-scalability MPC wallet for high-frequency transactions.

With the integration, GK8 clients will be able to; manage their assets on the NEAR Protocol, including its native token $NEAR and tokens issued by projects built on its blockchain, stake their $NEAR tokens natively, taking part in the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism, and earning rewards for keeping the network running, and access NEAR Protocol smart contracts, tapping into its diverse network of DeFi services and projects.

“The future of finance lies on-chain, powered by decentralized networks like NEAR Protocol,” says Lior Lamesh, CEO and Co-Founder of GK8. “We are thrilled to be bringing our users into the fast-moving NEAR ecosystem, giving them access to one of the most innovative technological platforms in the field.”

With the latest update, GK8 integrates its regulation-ready self-custody platform with the NEAR Protocol ecosystem. With the integration, GK8 users will be able to access the smart contracts built on the NEAR blockchain from their custodial platforms and build decentralized applications of any complexity to run in its network.  

“Security is one of the key conditions for the long-term growth of the blockchain space,” says Marieke Flament, CEO of the NEAR Foundation, which oversees the development on the NEAR protocol. “GK8’s solution offers all NEAR ecosystem participants a secure and reliable infrastructure to power their innovations and to help bring Web3 to mass adoption.”

Besides NEAR, GK8’s solution also features general support for all Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible layer-1 blockchains and instant access to all layer-2 smart contracts on supported chains. The platform has an arrangement with AON for customers to quickly and seamlessly access insurance of up to $750 million per Vault, the largest in the market today. It supports the tokenization of traditional assets and offers its users a military-grade level of security at no detriment to its functionality.