NEAR Protocol PriceNEAR

To encourage a distributed network of computers to run a platform for decentralised apps that make use of sharding for better scalability and data retrieval, the NEAR protocol was developed.

What Is NEAR Protocol?

To encourage a distributed network of computers (nodes) to run a platform for developers to build and release decentralized applications (dapps), the NEAR protocol was developed. The idea of sharding, which partitions the network’s physical components into smaller ones, is central to the NEAR protocol’s architecture. This partitioning allows nodes to process a fraction of the network’s transactions, which helps to improve data retrieval and platform scalability.

As the base layer upon which applications are built, NEAR functions similarly to centralized data storage solutions like Amazon Web Services (AWS). Unlike centralised systems, NEAR relies on a decentralized network of computers to run and update its data.

The NEAR protocol, similar to Amazon Web Services (AWS), creates an infrastructure based on a network of computers and its native coin, the NEAR token. This allows for code distribution in the cloud without requiring separate infrastructure building.

The official whitepaper is available at https://near.org/papers/the-official-near-white-paper, and the collection of papers can be found at https://www.near.org/papers.

How Does NEAR Protocol Work?

The ‘Nightshade’ sharding technique is the main selling point of the NEAR protocol, which is a Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchain. Sharding improves scalability and transaction throughput, which in turn reduces transaction fees by allowing each participating node to keep only a small piece of the platform’s data.

NEAR uses Thresholded Proof of Stake and achieves single-round block finality of roughly one second through Doomslug.

NEAR supports 1 million TPS, with 600ms blocks and 1.2s finality. The mainnet has maintained 100% uptime for over 5 years.

Evening shade

The NEAR protocol’s sharding solution, Nightshade, allows for the distribution of computing workload into manageable ‘chunks,’ maintaining a single chain of data in the process. After nodes have processed these chunks, they add the processed data to the mainchain.

By dividing the chain into smaller portions and giving them to participating nodes, Nightshade has the ability to reduce security weaknesses.

Bridge of Rainbows

Tokens from Ethereum can be easily transferred to NEAR via the Rainbow Bridge program, which is part of the NEAR protocol. Tokens can be transferred from Ethereum to the NEAR protocol by storing them in an Ethereum smart contract. Afterwards, NEAR’s platform generates new tokens that mirror the original ones.

Since the smart contract stores the original funds, this process may be undone if users want to get their hands on their original tokens.

The Aurora

To facilitate the introduction of Ethereum decentralized applications (dapps) on the NEAR network, engineers have created Aurora, a Layer-2 scaling solution on the NEAR protocol. Aurora combines the high throughput and low fees of the NEAR protocol with the familiarity and application network of Ethereum, allowing developers to effortlessly link their Ethereum smart contracts and assets. It does this by utilizing Ethereum’s coding technology, the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), and a cross-chain bridge.

Ecosystem & Partners

NEAR AI joined the NVIDIA Inception program to accelerate enterprise-grade, verifiable AI with confidential GPU compute. NEAR AI uses Intel TDX gateways for CPU-level confidential compute, securing inference from edge to cloud alongside NVIDIA GPU TEEs. The Government of Bermuda partnered with NEAR AI to deploy confidential AI for public services, starting with a secure assistant for processing sensitive citizen data. Brave and Ledger have integrated NEAR Intents, with Brave Nightly using NEAR AI for private inference and Ledger Wallet integrating NEAR Intents as a swap provider via SwapKit.

NEAR Intents

NEAR Intents provides universal cross-chain execution. It has been integrated by Ledger, Brave Wallet, Infinex, ThorSwap, HOT Wallet, and leading DeFi protocols for cross-chain execution with sub-cent fees and sub-second settlement. $19B in volume to date.

NEAR AI

NEAR AI provides private inference and a secure agent harness. Agents can be deployed using the private inference infrastructure serving Abound, Brave, and Venice AI. IronClaw sandboxes tools and isolates credentials inside hardware-enforced TEEs to ensure your secrets never reach the model.

Founders & Team

NEAR was founded in 2018 by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov with the goal to build a scalable, usable blockchain. Polosukhin was a machine learning researcher at Google and co-authored “Attention Is All You Need,” the paper that launched the transformer architecture powering today’s popular LLMs. Skidanov was previously engineer #1 and director of engineering at Microsoft’s SingleStore and an OpenAI contributor.

What Is NEAR Token?

NEAR has a total supply of approximately 1.3 billion NEAR (CoinMarketCap; Yahoo Finance lists 1,308,473,648), a circulating supply of approximately 1.3 billion NEAR, an unlimited max supply (∞), and a fully diluted valuation (FDV) of approximately $6.27 billion. The contract address as listed on CoinMarketCap is 0x85f1...b9f6a4 (displayed truncated on CMC).

You can pay transaction fees and use the NEAR token as collateral to store data on the blockchain. The NEAR token is rewarded to those who play an important role in the blockchain ecosystem, like those who validate transactions. On a yearly basis, validators receive rewards equal to 4.5% of the total NEAR supply per epoch.

A percentage of the transaction fees generated by smart contracts also go to the developers who created them. To increase the token’s scarcity, the leftover portion of each transaction fee is burned. To fund future ecosystem development, the NEAR protocol has set up a treasury that receives 0.5% of all NEAR tokens each year.

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and “wrapped” tokens from other chains are both supported by the NEAR protocol, which has built a bridge with Ethereum so that users can move their ERC-20 tokens over.

NEAR’s stake-based governance system, House of Stake, is live on mainnet, coordinating protocol upgrades, economic parameters, and treasury decisions through onchain ratification.

NEAR’s CertiK security rating is 4.5.

On-chain data can be verified through the official block explorer nearblocks.io, and a list of wallets is available on CoinMarketCap.

NEAR plans to reach 1 million TPS by 2026, introducing AI capabilities and expanding to three shards.

Investing in or using NEAR involves risks, including price volatility, regulatory policy changes, and technical risks. These factors may affect the network and the value of the token, and nothing here should be taken as a guarantee of future results.