Ref Finance (now rebranded as Rhea Finance) is a community-led, multi-purpose DeFi platform built on the NEAR Protocol. ^[1][2]

In February 2025, a merger between Ref and Burrow Finance was established to form Rhea Finance. ^[24][25]

History

Ref Finance was initially created by Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR Protocol. The first commit on Github was made on March 9, 2021. Following the deployment of the application in April 2021, Proximity Labs, a research and development company focused on NEAR, received a grant from the NEAR Foundation to bootstrap and scale Ref Finance. ^[3][4]

In early June 2021, Proximity set up the Ref Finance DAO, and the DAO members were selected based on their value, contribution, and activity across the board (mainly Telegram and Discord). ^[3][5]

Rebrand to Rhea Finance

Ref Finance and Burrow Finance merged in February 2025 to create the next generation of chain-abstracted liquidity platforms, Rhea Finance. ^[24]

This was said to be done for the betterment of decentralized finance as a whole. The two sides came together to combat the challenge of fragmentation.

The industry currently requires users to navigate different chains, platforms, and wallets to access liquidation and optimize their yield strategies. However, Ref and Burrow created Rhea Finance to solve this problem. ^[24]

Overview

Ref Finance operates on the NEAR blockchain. The platform is fully permissionless and removes the need for trusted intermediaries, prioritizing decentralization and censorship resistance. Anyone can trade and/or become a liquidity provider (LP) for a pool by depositing an equivalent value of each underlying token in return for pool tokens (LP tokens). These tokens track pro-rata LP shares of the total reserves and can be redeemed for the underlying assets at any time. ^[1][6]

The Ref Finance ecosystem is primarily comprised of five types of users: traders, liquidity providers, stakers, lenders & borrowers, voters, and developers. Traders can swap NEP-141 tokens, Liquidity providers are incentivized to provide these tokens to liquidity pools, Stakers are receiving pro-rata shares of the shared protocol revenue, Lenders & Borrowers can unlock the liquidity of the Near Ecosystem, Voters can participate in the governance of the project and the allocation of liquidity incentives, and finally Developers can integrate directly with Ref Finance smart contracts to empower users in their interactions with tokens, trading interfaces, trading strategies, etc. ^[6]

In March 2022, Ref Finance closed a strategic Over-the-Counter (OTC) deal with professional investors as well as business angels to raise $4.5 Million in stablecoins in exchange for 3,664,943 REF tokens. The investment was led by Jump Crypto, other investors include Alameda Research, Dragonfly Capital, D1 Ventures, OKX BlockDream Ventures, Kucoin Ventures, SevenX Ventures, WOO Network, Move Capital, and Puzzle Ventures. ^[7]

The fundraising was done to support and cover the development cost of REF for at least 24 months, starting from March 2022. ^[7]

Tokenomics

$REF is the Governance token of the REF ecosystem. The token rewards its holders with a protocol revenue-sharing model. ^[7][12]

Allocation

$REF has a fixed token supply of 100,000,000. 60% of the total supply was allocated to Liquidity Incentives, 20% to the Treasury, 10% to the Development Fund, 2.5% to IDO, 2.5% to REF Token Liquidity Provisions, and 5% to Airdrops (Strategic - 2%, Early User - 1%, and Future Airdrops - 2%). ^[7]

Utility

$REF can be used for earning protocol revenue through staking, it can be used for pooling, farming, boosted farming, and governance whereby users can get veTokens, which can be used to vote on governance proposals and the allocation of liquidity incentives. ^[7][13]

Rainbow Bridge

Ref Finance utilizes the trustless Rainbow Bridge which allows users to transfer tokens between Ethereum, NEAR, and the Aurora networks. The bridge was created and is maintained by Aurora, the Ethereum-compatible scaling solution built on NEAR. ^[11]

Partners

Ref Finance x cede.store

On February 22, 2024, Ref announced its partnership with cede.store^[9] to provide a simplified route for moving funds from centralized exchanges (CEX) to DeFi Protocols. ^[8]

"This collaboration aims to empower users by allowing them to seamlessly track, trade, and transfer their Centralized Exchange (CEX) assets directly through Ref Finance’s non-custodial browser wallet."

Ref Finance x Frax Finance

In March 2024, Ref announced the inclusion of Frax Finance's FRAX in its liquidity pools to further diversify and strengthen the NEAR Protocol’s ecosystem. The protocol also announced that liquidity has been added to boost Ref Finance liquidity pools and Burrow’s stable assets. The primary objective is to drive heightened engagement within the NEAR ecosystem. ^[10]

Ref Finance x Orderly Network

Ref Finance has partnered with Orderly Network, enabling the listing of REF on the platform alongside various supported assets. Users can now deposit REF and trade the REF/USDC spot pair on WOOFi DEX. Orderly Network operates as an orderbook-based trading infrastructure and liquidity layer, aiming to simplify the creation of trading applications. The collaboration aims to create an omnichain protocol for trading across EVM and non-EVM chains within the same orderbook.^[14][15]

Ref Finance x Burrow

Ref Finance has partnered with Burrow to integrate its protocol into Ref's product suite, enhancing the NEAR DeFi ecosystem. This collaboration aims to consolidate efforts, avoiding fragmentation, and offer users a comprehensive DeFi experience. Ref's development team will oversee Burrow's protocol management, ensuring continuous improvement and community engagement. This initiative underscores Ref's commitment to strengthening NEAR's DeFi ecosystem through collaboration.^[16][17]

Ref Finance x Blocksec

Ref Finance has partnered with BlockSec, a full-stack blockchain security service provider, founded by experienced experts from academia and industry. BlockSec leads independent audits to ensure that Ref Finance meets the highest standards in its segment, enhancing internal processes for optimal security measures.^[18][19]

Ref Finance x Pikespeak x Mailchain

Ref Finance has collaborated with Pikespeak and Mailchain to facilitate secure connectivity and communication within the NEAR ecosystem. By leveraging Pikespeak's analytics, Ref Finance aims to identify top traders and deliver exclusive content directly to them using their wallet addresses.

Additionally, Ref Finance intends to automate the delivery of "getting started" content to onboard new users, who can access their Mailchain inbox for updates directly from the team. Through Drop by Pikespeak, projects can segment wallet addresses and send web3 emails directly from the platform, with each campaign providing analytics for actionable insights into on-chain actions.^[20][21]

Ref Finance x Nearblocks

Ref Finance has partnered with Nearblocks, a blockchain explorer and analytics platform exclusively serving the NEAR Protocol ecosystem. Established in 2022, Nearblocks aims to provide equitable access to blockchain data for the NEAR community. Powered by NEAR Protocol, Nearblocks offers comprehensive features including blockchain exploration, search, API, and analytics services.^[22][23]