Aurora Section (#2681)

* add basic overview of Aurora and EVM compatibility

* Update website/sidebars.js

* Apply suggestions from code review

* Delete docs/aurora/dev-resources.md

---------

Co-authored-by: Guille <[email protected]>
Co-authored-by: Damián Parrino <[email protected]>

Author: 3 people

docs/aurora/build-on-aurora.md

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+---
+id: build-on-aurora
+title: Build on Aurora
+description: "Overview of building on Aurora and key concepts such as cross-chain compatibility, EVM compatibility, and onboarding users."
+---
+
+Developing your Dapp on Aurora is done in the same way as on any other EVM chain. The main steps in this process are:
+
+- Writing and deploying your smart contracts in Solidity by using Hardhat, Foundry, Truffle, or Remix.
+- Creating a frontend that interacts with these smart contracts and blockchain.
+
+:::info
+This section is an overview of the development process on Aurora. For detailed information, please refer to the [Aurora documentation](https://doc.aurora.dev/build-a-dapp/introduction).
+:::
+
+## Deploy Contracts
+
+To deploy your first contract on Aurora, basically you need to:
+
+1. Have a smart contract written in Solidity. If you don't have one, you can use the [Incrementer example contract](https://github.com/aurora-is-near/aurora-examples/tree/main/hardhat/incrementer-example).
+
+2. Get an Aurora Private key (from MetaMask or other Web3 wallet).
+
+3. Deploy the contract using Hardhat, Foundry, Truffle or Remix using the Aurora RPC endpoint. They're preconfigured in the Incrementer example ([hardhat.config.js](https://github.com/aurora-is-near/aurora-examples/blob/main/hardhat/incrementer-example/hardhat.config.js) file).
+
+---
+
+## Build Frontend
+
+Aurora supports major EVM-compatible Connect Wallet modules, such as:
+
+- [Wagmi](https://wagmi.sh/)
+- [AppKit (known also as Web3Modal)](https://walletconnect.com/appkit)
+- [RainbowKit](https://www.rainbowkit.com/)
+- [ConnectKit](https://family.co/docs/connectkit)
+- [Dynamic](https://dynamic.xyz/)
+- [Privy](https://privy.io/)
+
+:::tip
+Code examples and guides on how to connect a wallet and interact with smart contracts from the frontend can be found in the official [Aurora documentation](https://doc.aurora.dev/build-a-dapp/frontend/connect-wallet).
+:::
+
+---
+
+## Cross-Chain Applications
+
+Aurora itself is a virtual chain, because it's EVM built as a smart contract. Every virtual chain on top of NEAR protocol can benefit from [Chain Signatures](../chain-abstraction/chain-signatures) technology.
+
+Chain Signatures on virtual chains enable all addresses, both EOAs (Externally Owned Accounts) and smart contracts, to sign and execute transactions across many blockchain protocols.
+
+You can use Chain Signatures on your virtual chain by:
+
+- Deploying [Chain Signatures Signer](https://github.com/aurora-is-near/chain-signatures-signer) contract to your virtual chain.
+- Using libs to derive accounts, create and relay transactions ([Chain Signatures JS](https://github.com/aurora-is-near/chain-signatures-js/), [Near Multichain Examples](https://github.com/near-examples/near-multichain/tree/main)).
+
+To learn more about leveraging Chain Signatures on your virtual chain, please refer to the [Aurora documentation](https://doc.aurora.dev/crosschain/chain-signatures).
+
+---
+
+## Onboarding Users
+
+To make onboarding users easier, even ones unfamiliar with the Web3 ecosystem, Aurora provides Aurora Pass, a mobile cryptocurrency wallet that makes your interactions with Aurora or any of the Aurora Chains easier than ever, whether transferring your assets or using a DApp.
+
+**Key Features:**
+
+- Simple and user-friendly interface.
+- 50 free transactions for each user per month.
+- Secure and non-custodial wallet.
+- Send and receive assets on Aurora Mainnet and Aurora Chains.
+- View your portfolio balances and recent transactions.
+- Connect to DApps via WalletConnect v2.
+
+To learn more about Aurora Pass, please refer to the [Aurora documentation](https://doc.aurora.dev/onboard/introduction).
+
+## Developer Resources
+
+Available developer resources on Aurora:
+
+* [Aurora documentation](https://doc.aurora.dev/) - the official documentation for developers.
+* [Aurora Explorer](https://explorer.aurora.dev/) - view transactions, blocks, and accounts on Aurora.
+* [Aurora Cloud](https://auroracloud.dev/) - run your own Virtual Chain.
+* [Aurora Pass](https://aurorapass.app/) - a mobile cryptocurrency wallet.
+* [Dev Tools](https://doc.aurora.dev/dev-tools/quickstart) - a list of tools to help you build on Aurora, including RPC providers, indexers, oracles, and more.

docs/aurora/launch-virtual-chain.md

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+---
+id: launch-virtual-chain
+title: Launch a Virtual Chain
+description: "Overview of a virtual chains on Aurora, including its purpose, benefits, and how to launch one."
+---
+
+Virtual Chains are a unique innovation from Aurora, providing a dedicated and customized chain, or appchain.
+
+Each Virtual Chain is a copy of the Aurora Engine (the Aurora smart contract) and deployed on Near. This means that they inherit most of the performance and security features from Near:
+
+- 1s block time
+- 220+ validators from Near
+- ~$0.003 per transaction.
+
+---
+
+## The difference from appchains
+
+Usually, appchains are side chains or rollups, which are completely separate blockchains from the main settlement chain. This has several consequences:
+
+- Each appchain needs to have its own validator set, which can be expensive to set up and run, and affects the decentralization and security of the network. Typically, an appchain requires a minimum of 5 validators (which already comes at a cost)
+
+- Appchains come empty, meaning the team will need to redevelop all the tools they might have wanted to use, such as onramps, oracles, indexers, etc... This involves third parties and can be extremely costly and time consuming.
+
+- Instead, each Virtual Chain automatically gets all the 220 validators from Near
+
+- Because Virtual Chains are smart contracts on Near, this allowed us to build tools and services that automatically support all new Virtual Chain, such as onramp, centralized exchange support, Oracle, etc, so that you don't have to start from scratch.
+
+---
+
+## How to create a Virtual Chain
+
+Aurora has built a platform for running Virtual Chains: [Aurora Cloud](https://auroracloud.dev/).
+
+Aurora Cloud proposes different plans to get your own chain, including free transactions, custom professional services and much more in order to let you focus on building your application, not setting up infrastructure.

docs/aurora/what-is.md

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+---
+id: what-is
+title: What is Aurora?
+description: "Overview of Aurora as an EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible blockchain and ecosystem, running as a decentralized layer 2 on the NEAR Protocol."
+---
+
+[Aurora](https://aurora.dev/) is an EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) compatible blockchain and ecosystem, running as a decentralized layer 2 on the NEAR Protocol. It powers innovations such as Aurora Cloud, the infrastructure solution to onboard web2 businesses onto web3.
+
+Aurora is an EVM implemented as a smart contract on NEAR Protocol which provides several advantages:
+
+- Aurora is fully compatible with Ethereum. Applications can be seamlessly deployed on Aurora without the need to re-write smart contracts. All you need is to change the RPC endpoint you interact with.
+- Aurora runs on the NEAR Protocol, one of the highest-performance third-generation L1 protocols.
+- Transaction fees in Aurora are paid in the base currency, ETH, and are constant (gas price is 0.07 GWei).
+- Aurora supports all the Ethereum ecosystem tools — MetaMask, Foundry, Truffle, Hardhat, Remix, etc.
+- Aurora has protocol level meta transactions, which enables features such as gasless transactions for end users.
+
+---
+
+## Different Development Paths
+
+As a developer, a user can choose between two different ways to build on Aurora:
+- **[Build on Aurora mainnet](./build-on-aurora.md)**: The fastest way to deploy your Ethereum-based dapp with the low fees and high performance of the NEAR Protocol.
+
+- **[Deploy a Virtual Chain](./launch-virtual-chain.md)**: Create your own blockchain in minutes with customizable gas, permissions, and ecosystem integrations.
+
+---
+
+## Rainbow Bridge
+
+As a part of Aurora and NEAR ecosystem, the [Rainbow Bridge](https://doc.aurora.dev/bridge/introduction) is a trustless, permissionless protocol for connecting blockchains. The bridge protocol removes the need to trust anyone except the security of the connected chains. Anyone can deploy a new bridge, use an existing bridge, or join the maintenance of an existing bridge without getting approval from anyone else.
+
+The Rainbow Bridge allows any information that is cryptographically provable on Near and Aurora to be usable in Ethereum contracts and vice versa — including the ability to read the state and schedule calls with callbacks on the other chain.
+
+[Rainbow Bridge dApp](https://rainbowbridge.app/) allows also to:
+
+- Browse your transfers history.
+- Restore your transfers by a hash and see the detailed information, in the case you’re using another browser or device.
+- Deploy the new tokens for bridging if you’re an ecosystem project or developer.
+- Discover if token is already supported by it via Deploy page
+
+---
+
+## Learn More
+
+To learn more about Aurora, you can check out the official documentation at [doc.aurora.dev](https://doc.aurora.dev/).

website/sidebars.js

@@ -499,6 +499,24 @@ const sidebar = {
         },
       ],
     },
+    {
+      type: 'category',
+      label: 'EVM Developers',
+      collapsed: true,
+      customProps: {
+        icon: '/img/icons/ethereum.svg',
+      },
+      link: { type: 'doc', id: 'aurora/what-is' },
+      items: [
+        {
+          type: 'link',
+          label: 'Introduction',
+          href: '/aurora/what-is',
+        },
+        'aurora/build-on-aurora',
+        'aurora/launch-virtual-chain',
+      ],
+    }
   ],
   api: [
     'api/rpc/introduction',