After two years in charge of the NEAR Foundation, which oversees the NEAR protocol, CEO Marieke Flament has resigned.According to a blog post published on Thursday, Chris Donovan, the foundation’s chief counsel, will take her place.Up to the end of the year, Flament will continue to serve as Donovan’s strategic adviser.Flament will continue to serve on the council board for the charity.
“When I joined two years ago, NEAR had around 50,000 users, and now we have over 2.5 million daily active users,” Flament said in an interview with CoinDesk. She added that Donovan is well-suited to the CEO role now given “the current regulatory landscape.” She added: “We are not the only ecosystem making a move like that.”
According to data from DefiLlama, the NEAR protocol is now ranked 34th in terms of total value locked (TVL), a metric of the amount of money sequestered in a specific blockchain ecosystem.
A $100 million venture capital fund and startup lab were established by the NEAR Foundation and Caerus Ventures in September 2022.