Aurora Protocol - What is it and why is it important?
Tags: blockchain, ethereum, nearprotocol, web3
Published: 2022-04-28 00:19:47

The goal of NEAR is to create an interoperable future where the gaps between blockchains, developers and users are bridged as said by co-founder of NEAR Illia Polosukhin. Aurora does this by seamlessly allowing you to transfer digital assets between NEAR and Ethereum blockchains. 

Aurora is an Ethereum Virtual Machine(EVM) developed by the team at NEAR Protocol. It gives developers the opportunity to transfer their dapps from the Ethereum Blockchain to Aurora, offering high-performance, scalability and low transaction fees for their users.

###Key Points

####Full Ethereum compatibility 
As Aurora is an Ethereum Virtual Machine there is no need to re-write your Solidity applications. Leveraging Ethereums’ massive network rather than competing with it

####High performance and scalability
Aurora runs on the NEAR Protocol, offering next generation Layer 1 performance.

####Low transaction costs
NEAR Protocol transactions are not only fast but economical at a fraction of the cost of similar Layer 1s.

####Trustless Bridging
The Aurora Bridge is the only fully trustless asset bridge in the Ethereum economy.

####Base currency is ETH
All the transaction fees in Aurora are paid in ETH. This means 100% compatibility between contracts deployed on Ethereum and Aurora. Users of Ethereum will enjoy the frictionless experience.

![facts aurora](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5u8uc8gut7up5cuu7xbh.png)

###Aurora EVM
Aurora works on top of the NEAR blockchain and is implemented as a smart contract. This means Aurora doesn’t need to deal with consensus, validators, storage, security etc. and the team can iterate and deploy quickly.  All the execution is already in the hands of the NEAR blockchain.


![Aurora: how it works](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/m74lwymt38bunrfvfsoi.png)

###Aurora Bridge - Rainbow Bridge
Trustless bridge that connects Ethereum, NEAR and Aurora. Through this bridge you can transfer ERC-20 tokens at no cost(currently). For a guide to using the Rainbow Bridge check out this article. [How to: Rainbow Bridge](https://dev.to/sigma1/how-to-bridge-from-eth-to-aurora-using-rainbow-bridge-54bh)

![Rainbow bridge](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/y11qj7mznrzhwsz7k6e3.png)

###Aurora Token
The governance token of the network. Known as $AURORA with a max-supply of 1 billion tokens. A portion of the tokens are allocated to the community treasury which will be used to fund existing projects as well as to vote on submitted proposals. Potential use cases in the future include:

Token staking
Rainbow Bridge transfer fees
Voter incentivizing 
Additional contract execution fees

###Aurora DAO
The governing body of the Aurora protocol. Its role is to make high-level decisions regarding the Aurora protocol. This consists of Aurora Labs and early investors/partners including **Panterra**, **1Inch**, **DODO**, **Etherscan** and **Consensys**. Holders of the AURORA token will also periodically vote on DAO functions.

###Ecosystem
The Aurora ecosystem is growing at a rapid pace thanks to the portability it offers for existing dapps. With over 100 dapps already deployed on their platform, Aurora is gaining support from both Ethereum and NEAR developers. Important projects currently running on Aurora include:

**Trisolaris** - The largest AMM DEX on Aurora
**Bastion Protocol** - Lending and Stableswap
**Aurigami** - Lending, borrow and earn
**NEARPad** - DeFi hub to bootstrap innovations. Including launchpad(IDO platform) and DEX aggregator. 

###Future Plans
As the protocol continues to grow Aurora plans to optimize performance by introducing key features such as fast bridging with the most popular tokens, ability to pay fees in stablecoins,  a more user-friendly UX for crypto beginners and a sharded version of Aurora.

![Roadmap](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/914zg2pdsp5f2j4xoigp.png)

In conclusion Aurora has bridged the gap between first and next gen blockchains. Improving as well as extending Ethereums’ use case. This step opens up a broad scope of possibilities for both ecosystems, offering a frictionless compatibility between the 2 networks. By leveraging NEARs fast transactions, low fees and scalability expect Aurora to continue its growth and adoption. 

Links to projects mentioned in this post:
 - [Aurora Protocol](https://aurora.dev/)
 - [Rainbow Bridge](https://rainbowbridge.app/)
 - [NEAR Protocol](https://near.org/)
 - [Trisolaris](https://www.trisolaris.io/#/swap)
 - [Bastion Protocol](https://bastionprotocol.com/)
 - [Aurigami](https://www.aurigami.finance/)
 - [NEARPad](https://pad.fi/)