Near Foundation CEO Marieke Flament resigns

Marieke Flament, CEO of Near Foundation — the developer of the namesake layer-1 protocol — has resigned.

According to the Sept. 21 announcement, Chris Donovan, Near Foundation’s general counsel, will replace Flament as the new CEO following the resignation. Flament gave no specific reason for her departure. Speaking on her tenure, Flament said:

“Two years ago, I had never heard of NEAR. Upon doing a bit of research and after several conversations it became clear that NEAR had a tremendous potential – fantastic tech, a diverse and vibrant community and a world of open possibilities, and so I joined.”

Flament stated that from 2021 to 2023, the daily active user count of Near Protocol grew from 50,000 to 3 million and its Twitter followers grew from 200,000 to over 2 million, citing more than 2,000 pieces of press coverage. Partnerships signed by Near during this period include SWEAT, Playember, Circle, Ledger, Alibaba, Amazon, Google, KPMG, Cosmose AI, SailGP, The Littles, PipeFlare, Shemaroo, Kakao Games, Inven/Vortex and Netmarble/Marblex in Korea.

In addition, Flament disclosed that the current treasury balance of the Near Foundation is 330 million NEAR (NEAR), worth an estimated $350 million. Summing up her leadership strategy, Flament wrote:

“My strategy has been one of driving mainstream adoption, enabling and empowering grassroot communities and continuing our journey to decentralization. Bringing onboard large web2 players, while nurturing web3 innovators has also been key to our growth.”

NEAR is currently the 40th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at an estimated $1.04 billion. In June, Czech automobile conglomerate Škoda Auto launched a nonfungible token platform on the Near Protocol.

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