Smart contract ecosystem Near Protocol has earmarked $800 million for new funding initiatives aimed at growing its decentralized finance capabilities, offer the latest evidence that the highly lucrative DeFi market is still in its infancy.

The new funding, which includes the $350 million grants program appear by Proximity Labs concluding week, gives ecosystem developers added incentive to create new product offerings on Nigh, the visitor appear Monday.

Roughly $250 meg will be allocated to existing ecosystem developers and another $100 meg is earmarked for startup grants, with Near planning to fund more than than 20 startups at a rate of $5 meg each. The remaining $100 meg volition be spent on so-called regional funds across Asia, Europe and the The states.

Value locked in DeFi protocols has surged 936% over the past year, with Ethereum competitors such as Binance Smart Chain, Solana and Avalanche seeing considerable uptake, according to information from DappRadar. Ethereum projects account for roughly 66% of the total value locked beyond DeFi, according to manufacture sources.

Despite Ethereum's overwhelming authorization, the DeFi market place is growing at a torrid pace and is currently valued at over $247 billion — leaving plenty of room for competing platforms to capitalize. One yr ago, the total value locked in DeFi projects was less than $13 billion.

Related: Even with Ethereum 2.0 underway, L2 scaling is still fundamental to DeFi's future

Near accounts for a tiny sliver of the total DeFi market, but that could presently change equally more than developers tap into the new funding campaigns and users go along to search for alternatives to Ethereum-based protocols. Equally Cointelegraph recently reported, Ethereum'southward competitors have seen an influx of users fleeing the high fees on the Ethereum network.