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NEAR Protocol is a proof-of-stake blockchain that uses Nightshade sharding to divide state and processing across shards, allowing parts of the network to work in parallel. Its native token, NEAR (Ⓝ), is used for staking, transaction resources and storage-related balances. NEAR fees are calculated from the gas a transaction consumes and the network’s current gas price, so there is no single permanent fee for every transaction.

NEAR Protocol at a glance

Question Answer
What type of network is NEAR? A proof-of-stake blockchain.
How does it scale execution? Nightshade divides blockchain state and processing among shards so work can occur in parallel.
What is the native token? NEAR, also represented as Ⓝ.
What does NEAR pay for? Staking-related participation, computation and bandwidth fees, and the balance requirement associated with on-chain storage.
How are fees calculated? Required gas multiplied by the current gas price.
Is there one fixed transaction price? No. Gas use depends on the transaction, while gas price changes with network usage under protocol rules.

These are protocol functions, not a promise that the token will rise in value, that a particular transaction will always be inexpensive, or that an individual staker will earn a particular return.

How NEAR’s Nightshade blockchain works

Sharding divides the work

In a conventional single-chain design, every validator may need to process the same growing stream of state and transactions. NEAR’s Nightshade design partitions the blockchain’s state and processing across shards. Different parts of the system can therefore handle work in parallel rather than placing every operation in one execution lane.

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Nightshade does not mean that each shard is an unrelated blockchain with its own independent security. The shards are parts of one protocol. Their state and execution are coordinated by the network’s consensus and validation mechanisms.

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NEAR’s papers page identifies the Nightshade paper as first published in 2019 and updated to version 2.0 in 2024. The same description highlights stateless validation: validators can validate shard work without each one having to maintain the complete state in the traditional way. The exact implementation and active parameters depend on the protocol version deployed on mainnet, so a technical description should not be read as a guarantee that every detail in current implementation documentation is unchanged forever.

What parallel processing changes for users

Sharding is mainly an infrastructure choice. It is intended to let the network process activity across several shards while preserving a unified protocol. A user still signs a transaction for an account and pays the network’s resource cost; the sharding layer determines how the relevant state and computation are handled behind the scenes.

Sharding also introduces coordination work. Operations that touch accounts or state on different shards must be handled through the protocol’s cross-shard mechanisms. The benefit is parallelism, not the elimination of all latency, resource limits or validation requirements.

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Proof-of-stake security and validators

NEAR uses proof of stake for Sybil resistance and network security. In the project’s economics overview, token holders can support network security by staking, while validators provide the infrastructure that processes and validates network activity. Validators receive NEAR rewards for providing that service.

What staking means

Staking commits NEAR to the protocol’s validator-selection and security process. The economic purpose is to make it costly to attack or manipulate the network: participation is backed by valuable resources, and validators are expected to follow consensus rules.

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The existence of staking rewards does not establish a current annual percentage yield for every participant. Actual returns can vary with protocol parameters, validator performance, commission arrangements, uptime, the amount staked across the network and the period measured. The cited economics material describes the role of staking and rewards, not an individual guaranteed yield.

Running a validator versus delegating

Operating validator infrastructure requires technical resources and reliable participation. A token holder who does not run infrastructure may instead use a staking arrangement that delegates voting power to a validator, subject to the rules and risks of the chosen service. The protocol description alone does not identify a single required provider, minimum balance or guaranteed outcome for every staking method.

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What the NEAR token is used for

Network resources

NEAR is the unit used to pay for network resources. A transaction consumes computation and bandwidth, measured together as gas, and the resulting charge is paid in NEAR. This makes the token part of ordinary account activity rather than merely a governance or trading asset.

Staking and validator economics

NEAR is also the asset used in the proof-of-stake security model. Validators and participating token holders commit NEAR to support consensus, and validators receive protocol rewards for supplying infrastructure.

Storage-related balances

On-chain accounts and applications occupy state. NEAR’s economics explanation connects a balance to the right to occupy blockchain storage. It gives an illustrative estimate that 1 NEAR can correspond to roughly 10 kilobytes of account storage. That figure is an explanatory estimate from the project’s economics article, not an independently measured universal quota or a promise that the same ratio will apply under every future parameter set.

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The practical implication is that an account or contract may need enough NEAR attached to cover the state it keeps on chain. A transaction that creates records, deploys code or otherwise increases stored state can therefore have a balance implication beyond its immediate execution fee.

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How NEAR gas fees are calculated

Gas measures more than computation

NEAR uses gas as a unified measure of the resources needed to receive, execute and propagate a transaction. The nearcore gas-cost documentation describes gas costs and the parameters that assign resource costs to operations.

Two variables determine the fee:

  1. Gas required: the amount of gas consumed or reserved by the transaction’s actions.
  2. Gas price: the price of one unit of gas at the relevant point in the protocol.

The basic relationship is:

transaction fee = gas required × gas price

A simple transfer and a contract call can therefore cost different amounts because their execution and data-handling work differ. A contract call that writes state, triggers multiple actions or crosses shard boundaries can require a different gas amount from a basic payment.

Why the gas price changes

Gas price is adjusted according to network usage under protocol rules. It is not a permanent number printed into every wallet or transaction type. When demand and usage conditions change, the gas price used for a transaction can change as well.

That is why quoting one “standard NEAR fee” is misleading. A fee estimate is meaningful only with the transaction type, gas requirement, gas price and time or network conditions attached to it. The nearcore economics documentation describes the protocol’s issuance and fee mechanics, but implementation documentation may track current code rather than every version deployed on mainnet.

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What happens when a transaction runs out of gas

A transaction must provide enough gas for the actions it asks the network to perform. If the supplied allowance is insufficient, execution can fail before all requested actions complete. The exact outcome depends on the transaction and protocol rules, but a failed execution does not turn an underfunded gas allowance into a successful state change. Users should review the action list and the wallet’s fee or gas estimate before signing rather than assuming that every contract call costs the same as a transfer.

Storage costs are separate from the execution fee

Gas pays for transaction resources. Storage balances address a different question: how much state an account or application is keeping on chain. NEAR’s economics model ties storage rights to the account’s NEAR balance and uses the roughly 10-kilobyte-per-1-NEAR illustration described above.

Consider a contract that writes a new record. The transaction can consume gas for receiving, executing and propagating the instruction, while the newly retained state can increase the balance needed to support storage. Removing state can have the opposite effect under the protocol’s storage rules. The exact accounting is parameter-dependent, so users should treat the economics article’s ratio as a conceptual guide and verify active mainnet parameters when calculating a large deployment.

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NEAR’s supply and fee mechanics

Issuance depends on protocol activity

Protocol implementation documentation describes issuance as depending on rewards and fees. In practical terms, validator rewards are part of the supply mechanism, while fee handling affects how much value is removed or retained by the protocol.

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Collected transaction fees and burning

NEAR’s economics overview states that collected transaction fees are burned. Burning removes those units from circulation according to the protocol’s accounting rules. It does not mean that every period must produce a net reduction in total supply: issuance for rewards and other protocol parameters can offset or exceed burned fees.

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Because the balance depends on actual network activity and active parameters, the burn description should not be converted into a claim that NEAR is always deflationary. It explains one part of the supply mechanics, not a guaranteed direction for supply at every date.

What NEAR reported about fee capture in 2026

In its July 8, 2026 Q2 report, NEAR said a fee switch activated at the end of February 2026. The report described a portion of Intents flow as protocol revenue used to buy back NEAR. NEAR reported more than $20 billion in cumulative Intents volume, a 11.5% lifetime capture rate, a 17.9% trailing-90-day capture rate and a 30.5% trailing-30-day capture rate.

Those figures are claims made by NEAR in that dated project update. They should not be treated as an independent audit, a promise that the mechanism covers every network fee or a forecast of future token performance. The report’s capture-rate windows also measure different periods, so they are not interchangeable with one another.

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How to think about a NEAR transaction fee before signing

  1. Identify the action. A native transfer, contract call, account creation or state-writing operation can require different resources.
  2. Check the gas requirement shown for that action. The required amount is transaction-specific; do not substitute a fee from an unrelated operation.
  3. Check the current gas price. Gas price is usage-sensitive and can change between estimates and submission.
  4. Multiply gas by gas price. This gives the protocol fee estimate before considering any storage balance effect.
  5. Check storage impact. If the transaction creates or retains state, make sure the account has the NEAR balance required by the active storage rules.
  6. Review the final transaction details in the signing interface. Confirm the recipient, contract method, attached values and gas allowance; a low gas allowance can cause execution failure, while an unexpectedly large state change can create a storage requirement.

For a post-transaction check, use a block explorer or the transaction record supplied by your wallet to inspect the action result and actual resource use. A historical fee confirms what that transaction consumed; it is not a permanent quote for the next one.

What NEAR does—and does not—tell you

  • It does tell you: NEAR is a proof-of-stake network using Nightshade sharding; NEAR is used for staking, network resources and storage-related economics; and fees depend on gas use and gas price.
  • It does not tell you: a fixed universal transaction price, a guaranteed staking yield, a current token price or an assured investment return.
  • It does not establish an independent performance benchmark: current throughput or finality claims require measurements under defined conditions. The material cited here does not provide an independent current benchmark.
  • It does not make every implementation parameter permanent: nearcore documentation can reflect current master code, while deployed mainnet behavior depends on the active protocol version.

Bottom line

NEAR combines proof-of-stake security with Nightshade’s sharded execution model. The NEAR token pays for gas, participates in staking economics and supports the balance requirements associated with on-chain storage. Fees are not a flat schedule: each transaction’s gas requirement is multiplied by a gas price that changes with network usage. NEAR also describes fee burning and, in its July 2026 report, a newer fee-capture and buyback mechanism, but those supply and revenue effects must be read as protocol rules and dated project-reported figures—not as guarantees about token value or future returns.

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