Answer: NEAR is a popular open-source protocol and platform for building decentralized applications (dApps). It is designed to make it easy for developers to create and deploy applications on the blockchain. It has a number of features that make it attractive to developers, such as sharding and a virtual machine, which allow developers to create dApps with greater scalability and performance. As far as AVAX is concerned, it is an enterprise-grade blockchain platform that provides developers with an easy-to-use platform for creating and deploying enterprise-grade applications. It is designed to provide a secure, reliable, and scalable platform for businesses to build applications on. AVAX also has features such as multi-signature wallets, smart contracts, and cross-chain interoperability.