What is Near Protocol?$ NEAR Complete Guide to Cryptocurrency

Analysis of the NEAR protocol: Blockchain built specifically for AI agents

The cryptocurrency field has always pursued two core goals: speed and real-life application scenarios. Today, a third element is emerging-AI agents that can hold assets and act autonomously. The NEAR protocol is built based on these three elements. It calls itself a \"agent currency\" and is positioned as an underlying infrastructure with unified cross-chain liquidity.

This article will expand from the following dimensions: what is the nature of NEAR, how the actual operation mechanism is, what functions tokens have, and why it continues to be the focus of heated discussion among traders and developers.

What is the NEAR protocol?

NEAR is a first-level blockchain that belongs to an independent basic network rather than a derivative protocol attached to other chains. Its design philosophy revolves around fast transactions, low fees and a friendly developer experience.

The project was co-founded by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov in 2018. Interestingly, NEAR was not originally a blockchain project. Illia co-authored the 2017 paper that introduced the Transformer architecture-the core technology that today supports GPT, Claude and Gemini. This background in AI research is a key reason why NEAR is now positioned as an AI proxy infrastructure: providing underlying support for agents that require a trusted asset custody and trading environment.

Operating mechanism

NEAR expands through fragmentation technology, dividing the network into multiple small units that process transactions independently, rather than having all nodes verify all data-like widening a congested single lane into multiple lanes in parallel. Its sharding scheme is called \"Nightshade\" and has been iterated to version 3.0. This solution separates the consensus-building process from the execution process of transactions and adds private slices for confidential transactions.

Performance: The deblocking time is about 600 milliseconds, and the final confirmation time is about 1.2 seconds. The goal is to achieve the processing capacity of 1 million transactions per second under 9 shards. Private fragmentation is operated by seven licensed verification nodes and a TEE-based bridging mechanism to ensure transaction privacy and disclose information when necessary. The main network has continued to operate stably since its launch, and has achieved a 100% normal operation record for more than 5 years.

$NEAR token

$NEAR is a native token of the network. Its function goes far beyond digital symbols in the exchange, but is a core element that maintains the daily operation of the blockchain.

Core functions:

Pledge-The verification node maintains network security through a proof of interest mechanism by locking NEAR tokens.

Fuel Costs-Each transaction consumes a small amount of NEAR as a handling fee.

Governance-Holders can participate in voting on agreement decisions.

Developer Reward-Each time a smart contract is executed, the developer can get 30% of the fuel destruction share of the transaction, that is, part of the fee is directly paid back to the builder.

Why traders and investors favor NEAR tokens

People who follow NEAR closely often focus on its practical mechanisms rather than market hype. NEAR Intention allows users to only describe target needs without manually selecting cross-chain bridges. This feature has been integrated into platforms such as Ledger, Brave Wallet, Infinex, ThorSwap and HOT Wallet, and has processed approximately US$19 billion in cumulative funds. In the AI field, NEAR AI\'s private reasoning has served products such as Venice AI, Brave, and Abound, closely linking token value to actual infrastructure needs rather than relying solely on speculation. Governance features have also been launched, with House of Stake allowing holders to vote on agreement upgrades and financial decisions directly on-the-chain.

The above content does not guarantee any price trend, but is just a highlight often mentioned in NEAR features.

NEAR protocol core features

NEAR intentions-Cross-chain operations can be achieved without manually bridging assets.

NEAR AI and IronClaw-Private reasoning and credential isolation technologies that allow AI agents to hold real privileges without exposing sensitive data to the model itself.

House of Stake-an on-chain governance mechanism that allows holders to directly decide the direction of agreement upgrades.

Chain signing-A single NEAR smart contract can sign transactions on other chains; recent updates support Solana, TON, Stellar, Aptos and Sui networks.

Nightshade sharding-Scalable pillar technology allows NEAR to increase processing capacity without reducing speed.

Token Economics: Value Support

NEAR\'s initial supply is 1 billion pieces, and its economic model has undergone many adjustments:

Base layer fuel fee: 70% will be permanently destroyed, 30% will be distributed to developers.

NEAR Intention Fee: Used to repurchase NEAR tokens.

Annual inflation rate: It has been lowered from the original rate, slowing down the pace of new token issuance.

Pledge reward: paid to the verification node that maintains network security.

Note: Since the circulation supply and inflation rate are undergoing dynamic adjustment, it is recommended to consult the NEAR official token economics page for the latest data, rather than treating the data in this article as fixed values.

Summary

NEAR combines fragmented high-speed blockchain with cross-chain execution and private AI infrastructure, a combination that is still rare in the industry. The project founder\'s AI research background combined with years of blockchain development experience gives it technical characteristics that distinguish it from most first-layer networks. As these modules continue to evolve, it is worth paying attention to the dynamic updates of NEAR\'s official documents and blogs.