NEAR is a proof-of-stake Layer 1 blockchain built for usability, using sharding and human-readable account names.
NEAR launched its mainnet in 2020 according to the NEAR Foundation, and was co-founded by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov. NEAR's best-known feature is its account system: instead of an unreadable long string, users get human-readable names like 'alice.near'.
NEAR uses proof of stake and tends to offer low fees and fast confirmation. NEAR's design philosophy of being comfortable for developers and everyday users alike is what sets it apart from other Layer 1s.
NEAR scales through a sharding design called Nightshade. Nightshade splits the chain into shards processed in parallel, so speed and fees can hold up as usage grows.
NEAR has kept advancing its sharding with stateless validation, separating chunk producers from validators, and dynamic resharding that splits shards automatically. Building a network that holds up when many people use it at once remains NEAR's core technical challenge.
Data provided by CoinGecko
NEAR began positioning itself as 'the blockchain for AI' in 2024. Co-founder Illia Polosukhin was a co-author, while at Google, of the Transformer paper (Attention Is All You Need) that underpins modern AI, which gave the narrative weight.
NEAR promotes a vision of user-owned data and AI, and is building infrastructure such as Shade Agents, AI agents that run in trusted execution environments (TEEs) and act on-chain. This AI story is a major driver of recent interest in NEAR.
NEAR's other flagship concepts are chain abstraction and NEAR Intents. With NEAR Intents, users specify only the outcome they want, and the system routes the transaction across multiple blockchains without the user choosing a chain.
NEAR aims to hide the friction of wallets, network switching and gas tokens to deliver Web3 that feels as easy as an app. NEAR Intents usage grew sharply for cross-chain swaps during 2025 and 2026, making it central to NEAR's strategy of becoming a gateway that links many chains.
NEAR's roadmap has two main axes: continuing to raise sharding performance to increase throughput, and combining chain abstraction with AI-agent infrastructure.
NEAR plans to roll out user-owned AI, on-chain AI agents and a multi-chain experience that feels like a single network, step by step. Whether NEAR's technical story turns into sustained usage and fee revenue is the key thing to watch.
The NEAR token has an inflationary design in which new tokens are issued to fund staking rewards. NEAR cut its annual inflation rate from about 5% to about 2.5% in a protocol upgrade on October 30, 2025, per NEAR Protocol's official announcement.
NEAR's inflation cut went live even though the earlier validator vote fell short of the 66.67% approval threshold, which drew criticism over the governance process. Readers can check NEAR's current circulating supply and staking ratio on data sites such as CoinGecko.
NEAR draws attention for its technology and narrative, but how far the 'AI blockchain' expectation converts into real usage is still unproven. NEAR faces many fast competitors such as Solana and Ethereum Layer 2s, and its price can swing sharply with market narratives.
This article about NEAR is for information only and is not investment advice. Always make investment decisions at your own responsibility.
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