NEAR Protocol · NEAR
The sharded L1 staking its claim as the chain for AI
Low, honest inflation and a real native-gas-and-staking must-hold — riding an AI-platform story that's strong on positioning but still early on proven usage.
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You want coins with the best chance to rise. Three forces decide it: inflation (fewer new coins = less selling pressure), narrative (a strong story pulls buyers in), business model (is the token actually needed, and used). Full method →
NEAR · a halved mint, lightly offset by a fee buyback and a gas burn.
NEAR is the native token of NEAR Protocol, a sharded proof-of-stake L1 — ~1.3B circulating and fully unlocked, with no supply cap and a yearly issuance that was cut in half in late 2025.
Sell pressure. The chain mints ~8.0M NEAR over the next 90 days at the 2.5% yearly rate, down from 5%.
Buy pressure. A fee-funded buyback plus a gas burn remove only about 1.3M NEAR over the same period.
Net. About +0.5% to market over 90 days — supply still grows, but slowly, as the burns chip at the smaller mint.
New NEAR is minted each epoch to pay validators — about 8.0M over the next 90 days at the 2.5% yearly rate, down from 5% after the October 2025 halving upgrade. Ninety percent goes to validators, ten percent to the protocol treasury.
NEAR is fully unlocked — total supply already equals circulating, so no team, backer or treasury cliff reaches the market in the window.
No discretionary foundation or treasury release in the window. The 10% treasury slice of each epoch's mint accrues inside Sell #1 and is monitored as a continuous allocation, not a discrete dump.
No bankruptcy estate or court-ordered distribution applies to NEAR.
Since the Intents fee switch went live in February 2026, protocol revenue from cross-chain swaps buys NEAR on the open market — about 0.6M coins at the recent quarter's pace. The bought NEAR is held and staked rather than burned right away, so it leaves the open-market float but still counts in supply.
Seventy percent of every transaction's gas fee is burned on-chain and gone for good — small at current activity, roughly 0.7M over 90 days.
No discretionary open-market buying outside the fee-funded Intents buyback — monitored.
No new multi-year lock or escrow announced in the window — monitored.
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