NEAR is pleased to announce that API3, a leading first-party oracle solution that makes real world data accessible by smart contracts, will integrate its first-party oracle into the NEAR and Aurora blockchains. API3’s oracle, Airnode, is deployed natively within the API provider’s back-end infrastructure.
With Airnode, API data can be queried from blockchains without having to use specialist node-operating middlemen. This architecture both eliminates the Sylbil-vulnerable third party node layer and reduces fees by cutting out the “middleman tax” paid to these node operators for their services.
API3 has made over 180 Web2 APIs accessible to Web3 using Airnode so far. The API3 catalogue has a wide variety of data feeds across price, sports, weather, travel, randomness, and a range of other data categories.
This also includes over 400 institutional grade Open Banking APIs that deliver composability for onboarding and KYC (know your customer), transactions and account data, merchant and ATMs, and a range of other open banking use cases. These were recently utilized by a state-owned bank in El Salvador for a hackathon, supporting the exploration of inclusive on-chain financial services.
NEAR is committed to supporting the integration roadmap that prioritizes the deployment of crypto, forex, commodity, and equity data feeds to support the demands of DeFi. This will see API3’s catalogue of Airnode-enabled APIs being made accessible to dapp developers on Aurora and NEAR.
Ecosystem builders are encouraged to engage with NEAR Foundation and the API3 DAO. We are committed to supporting projects that will use NEAR’s easy, fast, and secure blockchain and API3’s oracle solution to power decentralized applications.