The NEAR Foundation, the entity in the support of the Layer 1 blockchain blockchain NEAR, announced plans to downsize its crew as it shifts focal point in direction of a extra narrow establish of activities.

In a Jan 11 replace, CEO Illia Polosukhin said that NEAR plans to diminish its crew by round 40%, which would influence 35 members of the crew all the procedure by advertising, replace kind, and community groups.

“The NEAR Foundation will present red meat as much as affected colleagues one day of this time to assist them bag smooth opportunities in the NEAR ecosystem, the Web3 industry, and beyond,” said  Polosukhin.

The resolution appears to possess stemmed from an inside review of the Foundation’s activities, which revealed that it had no longer been as efficient as it could presumably well possess been.

“Following this review, we now possess determined to drastically consolidate the core Foundation crew to focal point on a narrower and better-influence establish of activities,” Polosukhin added.

He clarified that the NEAR Treasury stays in a stable build, with over $285 million in fiat currency, and 305 million NEAR tokens, price over $1 billion at the time of writing. The Treasury additionally holds $70 million price of investments and loans.

In November, crypto market making firm Wintermute alleged that the NEAR Foundation and its subsidiary Aurora Labs didn’t honour a redemption deal price $11 million.

Wintermute founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy shared critical aspects of a transaction connected to NEAR’s now defunct stablecoin USN, which would possess allowed Wintermute to redeem USN for USDT on a 1:1 basis.

“Upon submitting our redemption, NF [NEAR Foundation] refused to honor their commitments. 2.5 months later, we haven’t obtained any USDT for the USN despatched to them in August,” said Gaevoy.