Near Protocol Shared Node

Near Protocol (also ‘Near’) is a sharded Proof-of-Stake smart contracts platform for decentralized applications. It pioneers the shared infrastructure: its architecture is split up into the number of parts or shards (‘sub-blockchains’).

For the first time, it was proposed in 2017 by ex-Microsoft’s Alex Skidanov and ex-Google’s Illia Polosukhin. Mr. Skidanov was a lead engineer of MemSQL workflow while Mr. Polosukhin was a lead contributor in the Tensorflow product. Its unusual name comes from Ray Kurzweil’s sci-fi book The Singularity is Near (2005).

In 2020, Near launched in mainnet and enabled token transfers. Inaugural releases were operated by Proof-of-Authority consensus controlled by Near Foundation. Native token NEAR is a core element of its economics and staking ecosystem.

Sharding, i.e. the splitting blockchain into the network of interconnected ‘sub-chain’ (shards) is the most striking advantage of Near architecture. This solution is the most efficient one for ‘horizontal’ scaling: blockchain can scale by just adding and integrating new shards.

In terms of consensus, Near adheres to the ‘Proof-of-Stake’ model: stakers lock their NEAR tokens to take part in ensuring the Near Protocol integrity. Stakers earn periodical NEAR rewards. Also, 0.5% of total supply annually goes to network treasury in order to fuel new stages of Near ecosystem progress.

Near Protocol PoS includes ‘Hidden Validators’ who act as an additional third-party layer of fraud prevention. ‘Hidden Validators’ or ‘Fishermen’ receive rewards for unveiling malicious behavior. Like in many other PoS systems, validators are penalized for signing invalid chunks or double-signing the block.

To achieve unparalleled speed and security, Near Protocol pioneered ‘Dynamic Re-Sharding’ ‘Nightshade’, and ‘Doomslug’ concepts. Dynamic Re-Sharding allows the use of network resources in a cost-efficient manner while Nightshade is a practice of cross-shard communication.

Doomslug is a novel technique of block production that guarantees the Byzantine Fault Tolerance of Near Protocol.

According to the estimations of the Near team and independent analysts, the implementation of this technological stack makes Near incredibly fast. As of Q4, 2021, Near is ranked amidst the fastest ‘Ethereum killers’ like Solana and Zilliqa.

Near can process up to 100,000 transactions per second (tps) and achieve transaction finality in a lightning-fast manner due to 1-second transactional latency. Also, its resource-efficiency results in negligible transactional fees: median Near fees are 10,000x lower than that of Ethereum, a flagship smart contracts platform.

To attract developers and crypto enthusiasts, Near released its own Software Development Kit (SDK) and created a seamless bridge to Ethereum. As such, the migration from Ethereum is no longer a problem for dApps teams.

As of early Q4, 2021, 15 decentralized applications are up and running on Near Protocol’s smart contracts environment. Paras, Mintbase and Near Crowd are the oldest among them while SputnikDAO and NearNames are the largest ones in terms of verified balance.

Marketplaces, social networks, decentralized finances protocols and exchanges are top focus categories for Near Protocol’s nascent decentralized applications ecosystem.