NEAR Price Today

The current real-time NEAR price is $5.45 . NEAR price has grew by 11.97% in the last day and decreased by 20.91% in the last seven days. It’s important to note that the current NEAR market capitalization is $6,633,796,406. The maximum supply is coins, with a circulating supply of 1,217,906,155.00. NEAR is ranked #25 in terms of market cap.

What Is NEAR Protocol 

NEAR Protocol is an advanced layer one blockchain enabling the execution of Decentralized Applications (dApp) on its network. The project is a community-driven cloud computing network competing with other blockchains offering smart contract support, like Ethereum.

While NEAR Protocol is an advanced technology, the ecosystem was designed with simplicity in mind. The network was built to be an ideal environment for developers to create dApps. It also boasts human-readable wallet addresses, making it easier for users to confirm the validity of transactions. 

The NEAR mainnet was launched in 2020, and Alexander Skidanov and Illia Polosukhin created the project. NEAR was founded in 2018 when Ethereum was heavily congested, with the project aiming to solve issues like scalability, interoperability, and high costs plaguing the Ethereum network at the time. 

Understanding How NEAR Protocol Works

NEAR Protocol is a unique layer one blockchain network. Developers can build applications on the NEAR network to benefit from its scalability and low transaction costs. It’s important to understand that NEAR Protocol is a network, while NEAR is its propriety token used for staking and to pay for storage and transaction costs. 

NEAR Protocol utilizes a custom Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus mechanism named Doomslug. In contrast to traditional PoS networks, NEAR requires validators to take turns when creating new blocks, meaning that they do not directly compete with each other. New blocks on the NEAR network are produced every second, enabling faster settlement time. 

There are1,217,906,155.00 NEAR tokens currently circulating. However, more will continually added to the supply as NEAR Protocol is an inflationary cryptocurrency. New tokens are created to reward validators for their efforts, and the NEAR team has targeted an inflation rate of 5%.

What Does NEAR Protocol Do?

NEAR Protocol facilitates the creation and running of decentralized applications. The network essentially acts as a storage system, enabling applications to save data on the network. Applications must use the NEAR token to pay for storage costs and any transaction fees it accrues. 

People can stake NEAR to strengthen the network and earn crypto rewards. However, the yield rate is proportional to how many tokens are staked on the network. Roughly 45 million NEAR is minted annually to reward validators. Stakers receive rewards equivalent to the number of tokens they contributed and the overall quantity of NEAR in the global staking pool. 

NEAR Sharding (Nightshade)

To achieve its high throughput (100,000 transactions per second) and near-instant settlement time, NEAR Protocol uses a propriety form of sharding known as Nightshade. 

Similar to parachains on the Polkadot network, Nightshade sharding allows multiple transactions to be validated synchronously across sharded chains. However, Nightshade also produces a small amount of the next block in the sequence, enabling greater throughput. 

NEAR Price History From ICO Until Today

NEAR began life in 2020 as a three-stage presale that saw tokens sell for $0.29 to $0.40. In total, the project raised $40 million from its ICO. Based on today’s prices, investors who got in at $0.40 would be at around 1,353% profit. 

NEAR officially launched in October 2020 at a price of $1,6946, but the asset quickly fell, hovering around $1 until 2021. As applications started getting built on the NEAR network and demand for layer one blockchains increased, NEAR performed well, rising to around $2.56 by January and $6.9321 by mid-March. 

The asset’s 2021 growth was fueled largely by the bull run, so when the market quieted down, NEAR fell, getting as low as $1.7306. However, as the market took off again, NEAR followed. The asset was $11.48 in September, rising to $12.32 in October, and setting an all-time high of $20.18 by January 15th, 2022. 

NEAR experienced volatility over the next few months, falling to $8.50 before rising to $17.50. However, NEAR crumbled as the crypto market entered a downtrend, and the asset bounced between roughly $1.10 and $1.90 until late 2023, when it shot up to $4.0893. As crypto rebounded, NEAR performed well, hitting $8.23 by May. Today, the asset trades at $5.45 .