What is NEAR Protocol (NEAR)?

NEAR Protocol is a blockchain for smart contracts and apps. Its coin is NEAR. It aims to be easy to use: accounts have readable names instead of long strings of characters, and the network splits its work into parallel pieces to handle more traffic.

Where it came from

Alexander Skidanov and Illia Polosukhin founded NEAR in San Francisco in 2018. The main network launched in 2020, at first in a restricted mode while it was tested.

How it works

• Proof of stake. Validators stake NEAR to produce blocks (Lesson 8).
• Sharding. NEAR's design, called Nightshade, splits the network into shards. Each shard handles part of the transactions, and the pieces are combined into a single block.
• Readable accounts. An account can be called something like alice.near instead of a long address. Lesson 22 explains why ordinary addresses look the way they do.
• Fees shared with developers. 30% of the fees a smart contract earns go to its developer.

Supply

New NEAR is created each year to pay validators. An upgrade completed on 30 October 2025 halved the maximum annual inflation from 5% to 2.5%. It took effect once 80% of validator stake adopted it, even though an earlier community vote on the change had fallen short of its threshold.

What people use it for

People use apps built on NEAR, stake NEAR and use it to pay fees and vote on network matters.

Risks to know

• Who decides. The 2025 inflation cut went through validator adoption after a community vote failed to reach its threshold. Holders should know that validators, not coin votes alone, decide upgrades.
• Staking rewards come from new coins. Lesson 50 explains why a yield paid in new coins is worth less than it looks.
• Competition. Many networks compete for the same apps and users.
• Price swings. NEAR can fall far and fast, like other coins.

Learn more

Lesson 7 covers smart contracts, Lesson 8 explains proof of stake, and Lesson 22 covers keys and addresses.