HIP-24 Ref Finance on NEAR Protocol

Linked HGP : HGP-8 [DG] New Gateway-V2 Connectors

Description : Proposal to integrate NEAR Protocol into Gateway and build a connector for Ref Finance. The connector will be built following CoinAlpha's standard of quality and performance.

URL : https://near.org/ Ref Finance : https://www.ref.finance/

NEAR is a carbon-neutral layer-1 blockchain network that is scalable and secure thanks to its unique implementation of sharding called Nightshade. NEAR is built with a focus on usability and ease of use, for both developers and users.

Source : https://near.org/about/network/

Ref.finance is the first major DeFi application on the NEAR blockchain.

Since the launch of our automated market maker (AMM), the product and ecosystem have grown rapidly. Recently, the SKYWARD <> NEAR pair became the first to surpass $1 million in total value locked (TVL).

And this is just the beginning. Over time, Ref will grow from a single product (an automated market maker) into a first-of-its-kind suite of products running on a synchronous shard.

Source : https://ref-finance.medium.com/ref-finance-and-ref-abd14aad59bf

HBOT Allocation : 500,000 HBOT

The development work is divided into two parts:

1. Create a new chain in Gateway to allow interaction with NEAR Protocol: https://docs.near.org/

2. Build a Gateway connector for Ref Finance into Hummingbot: https://guide.ref.finance/

This task also involves creating a new connector class on the client which will point to near protocol equivalent endpoints.