TL;DR
- Meta Pool is launching a community challenge for Latin American Stake Wars Participants
- We have partnered with Amazon Web Services to release a pilot program to support validators
- This challenge is run through stake wars for validators, but is not completed for Stake Wars points
- There can be up to 20 winners, each receiving $5000 USD in AWS credit
Overview
Meta Pool is announcing a new partnership with Amazon Web Services. We are hosting a community challenge for Stake Wars participants from Latin America to earn credits from AWS that will help launch their nodes. We are excited to add AWS to the growing list of Meta Pool Partners!
The pilot’s main goal is to support 20 chunk producer node operators in Latin America and each of them will be granted $5000 USD in AWS. We’ll break down the specifics of our partnership, the reason behind choosing Latin America, and how this move helps fuel NEAR’s decentralization.
Meta Pool Partners with AWS for Pilot Program
As part of Meta Pool’s initiative to support the NEAR Ecosystem for Stake Wars III, we are launching a pilot program with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to support the Latin America region.
This challenge is critically important to the NEAR Foundation’s larger commitment to regional hubs, especially in South America.
As a company with a team largely based in South America, we are very excited to partner with one of the leading cloud solutions providers for the region. Amazon Web Services is powering some of the most important startups in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil.
Historically Latin America has been excluded from developing financial and technological markets. It is no surprise that over 60% of the population in Mexico and Colombia do not have access to financial services. However, more than 90% of the population have access to mobile devices and connectivity, which is a great combination for blockchain applications to build a solid foundation of customers and users.
As such, this challenge represents the commitment of both Amazon and the NEAR Foundation to support layer one solutions in Latin America and the vibrant community of builders and entrepreneurs growing behind them.
Blockchain Solutions on AWS
During Crypto Fest in Tulum we had the chance to talk to Jorge Gutierrez, head of Fintech support for Amazon in Latin America. We had a great conversation about how the region is growing quickly financially, but there is a lack of long term support for decentralized projects.
AWS allows anyone to build scalable and robust solutions on top of the Amazon infrastructure. Having access to AWS allows Latin Americans to deliver tech-savvy decentralized financial services to a population that would not normally have access to a traditional bank.
There are great initiatives like EthicHub, a decentralized marketplace built on L1 solutions catering to audiences outside large city industries. EthicHub serves coffee farmers in Mexico and Guatemala, allowing them to sell their goods directly on the international market with no middle man, resulting in more profits for the farmer.
We believe these sort of initiatives are crucial in linking underserved communities to the global market on their own terms. Amazon is a key partner that will allow us to have this impact with the support of their cloud infrastructure.
Building a Decentralized NEAR Protocol
This challenge is only available to node operators in Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Brazil. This is a pilot program and we want to focus on these countries given our connections to Latin America and our partnership with AWS.
The program’s goal is to support 20 chunk producer node operators in Latin America. Each of them will be granted $5000 USD in AWS credits to launch their nodes.
Complete the Community Challenge
The first mandatory challenge is having an uptime above 70%
Add proof of completion to the Google Form
Choose the tasks you want to complete, and add them to the submission form!
Launch your node!
Complete all your tasks to earn a chance at $5000 USD in AWS credit!
Helping establish validator nodes in these countries proves our commitment to the decentralization of the NEAR Protocol. Expanding validator nodes around the world is critical to increasing the adoption of web3 and DeFi technologies. We are committed to expanding the pool of validators and are increasing NEAR Protocol’s Nakamoto Coefficient whenever possible.
To submit your own entry for the Latin American community challenge, you can go to the gitbook page here. At the bottom you will find the link to the google form to provide proof of challenge completion. We are very excited to add AWS to the list of Meta Pool partners.
Best of luck and may the NEARverse be with you on your journey.
About Meta Pool & stNEAR
Meta Pool is the leading liquid staking solution for $NEAR and wNEAR token holders. With Meta Pool you earn NEAR staking rewards and maintain your liquidity to participate in DeFi protocols on NEAR and Aurora.
Users staking $NEAR and wNEAR with Meta Pool receive in exchange stNEAR (staked NEAR) tokens.
stNEAR simultaneously accrues staking rewards and unlocks users’ liquidity enabling them to participate in DeFi activities (e.g. lending, farming, borrowing) on NEAR and Aurora.
Stake $NEAR on Meta Pool
~11% APY
Get stNEAR
Yield-bearing token
Go DeFi on NEAR & Aurora
More APY and more rewards
Meta Pool also solves the problems associated with Proof-of-Stake networks staking: illiquidity, immovability and accessibility. Meta Pool also aims to distribute staking in multiple validators to improve censorship-resistance of the NEAR network.
With a TVL of ~9 Million $NEAR and growing, Meta Pool has become in just a few months a cornerstone element of the NEAR ecosystem. Meta Pool is making NEAR Protocol more decentralized and therefore more secure.
In February 2022 Meta Pool has been successfully audited by BlockSec, confirming the implementation of the highest security standards.
For more information visit https://metapool.app.
