According to Foresight News, the NEAR Foundation announced that it is working with D3 to launch the *NEAR name token, which aims to provide users with a comprehensive digital identity solution across the Web3 ecosystem. The program will be initially launched later this summer, and existing NEAR account holders will receive exclusive early access to their equivalent *NEAR name tokens.
NEAR said the name token has an asterisk instead of a period between the name and the extension, in part because NEAR accounts already use the .NEAR extension and want to avoid user confusion. It also wants to avoid confusion with real domain names.