50 Year Milestones of the NEAR Protocol: Highlights

NEAR protocol marks 5 years since its mainnet launch on October 13, 2020, with a collection of developments increasing its technical capabilities and ecosystem. Based by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov, the protocol began as an AI-focused startup in 2017 and moved to blockchain in 2018 to deal with points akin to scalability and value.

For the reason that mainnet launch 5 years in the past, layer 1 The blockchain platform is powered by 9 shards, 600ms block time, 1.2s finality, over $2 billion in intent quantity, assist for over 120 cross-chain property, over 50 million energetic addresses, over 50 startups constructed on the platform, 500 validator seats, over 550 million NEAR tokens staking, over 2,000 NEAR customers Members of the Legion neighborhood have been reported. 100% availability.

These numbers mirror the protocol’s give attention to sharding know-how, account abstraction, and intent-based transactions, positioning the protocol for purposes in decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, and AI-integrated programs.

Founding and conversion to blockchain

The origins of the NEAR protocol date again to 2017, when Polosukhin, a former Google machine studying researcher, and Skidanov, previously of MemSQL, based NEAR AI. The unique purpose was to discover program synthesis and AI-driven code technology. Nonetheless, as world funds to donors grew to become troublesome, curiosity in blockchain options elevated.

By 2018, the staff pivoted to growing the NEAR protocol, a blockchain designed for linear scalability by means of sharding, elevated ease of use by means of account abstraction, and developer accessibility by means of assist for programming languages ​​akin to JavaScript and Rust. The purpose was to ease the onboarding of as much as 1 billion customers.

Polosukhin’s background consists of co-authoring the 2017 paper “Attending Is All You Want,” which laid the muse for the transformer mannequin in AI. This AI experience influenced the design of NEAR, with a give attention to autonomous brokers and user-owned information programs infrastructure. The protocol’s sharding mechanism, often known as Nightshade, distributes computational workloads throughout a number of shards to deal with elevated transaction volumes with out slowing down the community.

Mainnet launch part

NEAR’s mainnet rollout occurred in levels. April 2020, Part 0, or genesis launchcreated 1 billion NEAR tokens and launched the community. Throughout this part, the community was operational, however with limitations, permitting staking and governance actions. By September 2020, Part I moved the community to community-run standing and expanded validator participation.

The entire mainnet, Part II, was launched on October 13, 2020, enabling token transfers, decentralized purposes, sensible contracts, and governance with threshold proof of stake. This handover to neighborhood governance marked full decentralization. the subsequent day, NEAR token I began buying and selling on exchanges akin to Binance. Since then, the community has maintained uninterrupted operations, making it a key component of reliability for builders and customers.

Main know-how upgrades and sharding advances

After launch, NEAR applied a number of upgrades to enhance efficiency. The detailed breakdown by 12 months is as follows.

2021 Milestones: In 2021, Easy Nightshade introduces part 0 shardingis step one in distributing information and computation throughout shards. This enabled the community to extra effectively deal with elevated masses by means of parallelism, laying the muse for the NEAR protocol’s scalability efforts.

Developments in September 2022: This was adopted by Part 1 sharding in September 2022, additional rising throughput. This replace builds on the preliminary sharding implementation and optimizes how transactions and information are managed throughout the community, bettering total efficiency.

Announcement for March 2023: NEAR by March 2023. blockchain working systema layer for creating open net experiences which are appropriate with a number of blockchains. The system aimed to supply a unified framework for builders to construct decentralized purposes that may seamlessly work together throughout totally different blockchain environments.

Updates October to December 2023: Later that 12 months, from October to December 2023, protocol updates included the discharge of Nearcore model 1.36.0. We’ve got partnered with Polygon Labs for zero-knowledge WebAssembly provers, Nym for enhanced privateness, and Eigen Labs for quick finality of Ethereum Layer 2 options. NEAR additionally launched information availability companies for Ethereum Rollup, increasing its usefulness in supporting the scaling wants of different networks.

Modifications for January 2024: In January 2024, NEAR Pockets has developed right into a pockets hubIn the meantime, Stake Wars IV examined Part 2 sharding by means of stateless validation. These efforts centered on bettering the consumer interface and validating superior sharding strategies to cut back useful resource necessities for node operators.

March 2025 enhancements: Resharding V3 was launched in March 2025 in protocol variations 74 to 76, enabling cross-shard bandwidth scheduler and state synchronization enhancements. These options tackle inter-shard communication bottlenecks and guarantee extra constant information processing throughout the community.

Velocity ​​enhancements in Might 2025: Important velocity enhancements arrived in Might 2025. 600ms block time Model 77 had a finality of 1.2 seconds, outperforming Solana in block velocity and 600x outperforming Ethereum in finality time. This replace consists of world contracts primarily based on NEP-591 and optimistic block execution to cut back latency, enabling quicker transaction confirmations and broader software assist.

Proposals and amendments for June and July 2025: In June and July 2025, in parallel with coverage amendments, a proposal was made to cut back the utmost inflation fee from 5% to 2.5%. Nearcore model 2.6.5 As for the block technology challenge. These changes have been aimed toward stabilizing the provision of tokens and resolving technical points that might impression community reliability.

Added in August 2025: Model 79 launched a ninth shard in August 2025, rising throughput by 12.5%. furthermore, NEP-536 Adjusted refund mechanism. NEAR tokens staked exceeded 600 million tokens, reflecting elevated neighborhood participation and community safety.

September 2025 enlargement: Model 80 in September 2025 extends cross-chain integration with Aptos, Tron, and Cardano to Intents, introduces Zashi CrossPay for shielded funds, will increase validator seats to 500 (minimal 105 per shard), and releases Nearcore 2.8.0. These updates improve interoperability and privateness options whereas increasing our validation infrastructure.

Ecosystem development and partnerships

Transaction and pockets metrics for 2022:All through 2022, NEAR processed over 164 million transactions and created thousands and thousands of wallets, reaching 10 million by Might. This era has highlighted the rising adoption of this protocol by way of consumer exercise and on-chain interactions.

Partnerships and Group Engagement in 2022: The partnership included collaboration with SailGP alongside neighborhood initiatives akin to Hacker Home occasions and workshops. These efforts centered on developer engagement and selling real-world purposes.

July 2025 Intention Efficiency: By July 2025, NEAR Intents had processed over $570 million in commerce quantity, over 1.2 million swaps, and supported 100 property. This demonstrated the system’s functionality for cross-chain transactions.

Integration and launch in July 2025: Integration with Sui and BitGo coincided with the next releases:

• NEAR Home of Stake AI Co-Pilot
• surge swap
• Different markets
• scorching craft

Development intention in August 2025: With the addition of Stellar integration, intent quantity elevated to $900 million by August. This represents a continued upward pattern in transaction processing and asset assist.

October 2025 goal milestone:Intention as of October 2025 Buying and selling quantity exceeded $2 billionwith 1.8 million swaps and 120 property, with month-to-month numbers nearly doubling. These indicators mirror the speedy enlargement of multi-chain operations.

Blockchain Quantity in October 2025: Day by day blockchain buying and selling quantity exceeds $80 million, surpassing Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon in multi-chain exercise with tasks akin to HOT DAO. This has established NEAR as a aggressive participant in decentralized finance.

Ecosystem Overview for October 2025: The ecosystem consists of greater than 50 startups, and Chain Signatures permits management of networks akin to NEAR’s Solana and TON. This characteristic helps built-in administration throughout blockchains.

Community efficiency in October 2025: Utilizing 8-9 shards, the community achieves 300x throughput and 50% decrease latency. Sharding instantly contributes to those effectivity enhancements.

Governance shift by stakehouse: Governance is transitioning by means of the Stake Meeting Roadmap, launched on October 9, 2025, which outlines 4 steps:

• meeting
• alignment
• activation
• autonomy

Governance initiatives Now stay on mainnet October thirteenth.

fifth anniversary occasion: The fifth Anniversary on October 13, 2025 featured:

• statistical spotlight video
• Dialogue on the interim structure
• 280,000 NEAR Finances veNEAR Rewards
• Validator assist
• AI-powered governance instruments

Future roadmap components

NEAR’s documented roadmap features a purpose of 1 million transactions per second, OmniChain options akin to OmniToken and OmniBridge, sharded sensible contracts, and expanded AI integrations akin to trusted execution atmosphere assist for Chain Signatures and AI brokers within the Shade Agent sandbox.

Our partnership with Bitwise, which manages over $12 billion in property for staking exchange-traded merchandise, and Everclear, which has over $1 billion in buying and selling quantity, helps these efforts. Whereas the historical past of the protocol reveals sustained efficiency, balancing decentralization and scaling is a problem.

conclusion

Over 5 years, the NEAR Protocol has developed from an AI startup to a layer 1 blockchain with operational sharding, quick block instances, and cross-chain intent to deal with billions of volumes. Its milestones, together with constant upgrades and partnerships, exhibit its scalability and AI integration capabilities to deal with particular blockchain constraints.

This observe report displays the protocol’s function in supporting decentralized purposes and multi-chain operations, and offers a basis for builders centered on high-throughput programs. A continued give attention to technical reliability will stay central to our continued contributions to this discipline.

supply:

• NEAR Protocol Official X Account – https://x.com/NEARProtocol
• CoinMarketCap NEAR evaluation – https://coinmarketcap.com/forex/near-protocol/
• Blockchain.com Explorer for NEAR – https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/property/close to
• NEAR Protocol launches 600ms blocks, 1.2s finality to unlock DeFi use instances: https://thedefiant.io/information/blockchains/near-protocol-launches-600ms-blocks-1-2-second-finality-unlocking-defi-use-cases-490247d4
• NEAR documentation and guides: https://docs.close to.org/
• Close to historical past: https://www.close to.org/roadmap-history