NEAR
Layer 1 Protocol, NEAR Ecosystem
NEAR Protocol (NEAR) is a highly scalable and developer friendly layer-one sharded decentralized application platform. Drawing from the original vision of Ethereum, the NEAR team defines the protocol as a blockchain based community cloud that combines compute and storage in a trustless way.
The technical design is focused on creating a quality user and developer experience that is familiar. The NEAR team hopes this will lead to increased end user adoption of applications built on NEAR. NEAR has its own native NEAR tokens which are used to pay for transaction fees and storage on the NEAR platform.
APY | 12.35 |
Total Supply | Inflationary |
Compounding | Automatic |
Compounding Frequency | Every 12 hours (once per epoch) |
Reward Distribution Period (Payout frequency) | Every 12 hours (once per epoch) |
Unbonding Period | 48-65 Hours |
Slashing Penalty | Not Implemented |
Delegation Requirements (Min-Max) | No min. or max. stake |
Validator Self-Bond Requirement | A validator has to surpass the seat price through a mix of self-bond and delegation to be in the active set of validators. |
Inflation | 4.5% |
Figment Validator Address | figment.poolv1.near |
Recommended Wallet | |
Burn Mechanism | All transaction fees (minus smart contract allocation, 30% for app developers) are burned. |
Validator Diversity | Currently the top 100 validator with highest stake comprise the active set |
You can use the command-line interface (CLI) if you are technically inclined. There's also the Trust Token wallet for mobile.
We recommend using the user-friendly NEAR Wallet. Head to https://wallet.near.org to access the web interface provided by the NEAR team. Here you can use your Ledger hardware device (recommended), or you can recover your account with your 12-word seed phrase, email address, or phone number. Know that your seed phrase essentially controls your funds, so take great care not to expose this unless you absolutely must.
The NEAR Wallet doesn't yet allow you to create a new wallet. If you have a NEAR token allocation of NEAR tokens, ask either CoinList or the NEAR Foundation to send you a NEAR Drop and follow this guide.
Now that the NEAR mainnet staking is enabled, you will be able to earn staking rewards. Use the NEAR Wallet to delegate to the Figment staking pool: figment.poolv1.near
- 1.Select “Staking” from the navigation bar (or dropdown on mobile)
- 2.Click the “Select Validator” button
- 3.Choose 'Figment'
- 4.Confirm your choice and select “Stake with Validator”
- 5.Enter the amount of NEAR you would like to stake, and click “Submit Stake”
- 6.You will need to confirm two transactions, one to select the validator, and another to deposit and stake with the validator.
- 1.On the staking dashboard, select your current validator
- 2.Click “Unstake” and confirm the transaction
- 3.After 36 to 48 hours (3 full epochs), you will be able to withdraw your stake. To do so, return to the validator page, and click “Withdraw”.
- Total Amount Staked: NEAR tokens your account has currently staked with Validators. These tokens are accumulating rewards. To access these tokens once again, you must first unstake and then withdraw them from the staking pool.
- Unclaimed Rewards: Token rewards that have been earned, but not withdrawn from the staking pool. Unclaimed rewards are automatically restaked, which means your “Total Amount Staked” automatically increases over time, and your rewards are compounding.
- Tokens Available for Withdrawal: These tokens have been unstaked and are ready to be withdrawn.
- Tokens Pending Release: These tokens have been unstaked, but are not yet ready to withdraw. Tokens are ready to withdraw 36 to 48 hours after unstaking.
- Validator Fee: This is the fee paid to the validator to stake on your behalf. This fee is only charged on your rewards earned not your total token balance staked to the Validator. Each Validator can set their own fees, so take this into consideration when deciding who to stake to.
Much like NEAR Protocol itself Governance on NEAR focuses on usability, scalability, simplicity and decentralization. Governance proposals are posted, discussed and voted on using NEAR's governance board.
NEAR's ecosystem has seen significant growth with dozens of projects from DEX's (decentralized exchanges) to infrastructure projects to games and NFT platforms building on top of NEAR. Notable examples are Flux Protocol which is developing a truly decentralized oracle for the web3 community and Mintbase, a NFT platform. Going forward the NEAR ecosystem will have to show if it can rival competitors such as Cosmos, Ethereum, Solana and Polkadot on both activity and market capitalization.
What is staking?
On a Proof of Stake blockchain, staking is the act of depositing tokens in order to become a validator; that is, to participate in proposing and attesting to transaction blocks. Anyone with a minimum necessary coin balance can validate transactions and earn staking rewards on these blockchains.
What is the name of the asset being staked?
NEAR Protocol's native token, NEAR, is used to stake, pay for transactions, and for validators to participate in on-chain governance.
Where can I explore the network and create a NEAR wallet?
Why stake NEAR?
Initially, the NEAR token is staked to earn new issuance ("inflationary") subsidies. It means that the NEAR supply will increase and stakers will capture the newly issued NEAR. In short: as of Oct 21 you can stake locked tokens to earn approximately 22% annually.
Stakers will proportionally share the newly issued NEAR tokens. The targeted issuance rate is 5% annually with 10% of that going to the NEAR treasury. This means that 4.5% of issuance will be given to validators and NEAR token holders who decide to stake NEAR.
As of Oct 21, 20% of the supply is staking, meaning that stakers are earning just over 22% annually. If 70% of the token supply participates in staking, then stakers should expect about 6.4% in yearly rewards.
The NEAR token also gives validators the right to vote on policy decisions on how the NEAR protocol will operate and distribute treasury funds.
How long does it take to stake and unstake?
From the moment you initiate the unbonding process, it takes up to 48 hours (4 epochs) to unstake. During this time you will not earn rewards. When the process is complete, you can transfer/trade your NEAR tokens.
When are staking rewards and transfers enabled?
Transfers and staking rewards are now enabled. Token transfers were enabled by validators on October 13, 2020 via on-chain vote. Staking rewards began after the network was upgraded on October 20, 2020.
How is staking income disbursed?
Staking income on NEAR is automatically distributed. Figment is never in control of your rewards. Staking income is staked automatically, which means you will need to unstake to withdraw your staking income.
Can I lose potential staking rewards?
Slashing will be activated on NEAR Protocol later in 2022.
Yes, if your validator is offline too long. Your validator (and stake) will not be slashed for downtime, but your validator will be removed from the active set if offline for more than 10% of a 12 hour period. If this happens, your validator will not be able to earn rewards for up to 36 hours. Your validator (and stake) will not be slashed for downtime.
If your validator is online at least 99% of the time, you will earn 100% of your potential rewards. Anything below that and you will lose potential rewards, and ultimately you will earn no rewards for the epoch (ie. 12 hour period) below 90% uptime. That means, for example, that if your validator has 95% uptime, you should receive approximately 50% rewards for that epoch.
You will not lose potential rewards if your validator performs an equivocation (ie. double signing a block at the same height) or produces an invalid state transition (producing an invalid chunk of a block).
Can my staked NEAR be slashed (seized or destroyed)?
Figment insures our clients from slashing and has never had a slashing event.
What is the rate of new issuance (aka "annual inflation") for NEAR? How does the token supply change?
A 5% increase in supply via new issuance (and a 70% burn rate for transactions). NEAR Protocol launched with a supply of 1B NEAR tokens, 176M of which will be circulating. New supply issuance will not begin until Mainnet Phase II. You can read about token distribution here.
According to the Economics Blog Post and Economics Paper, 5% of additional supply is issued yearly: 90% goes to validators (4.5% total) and 10% to the protocol treasury (0.5% total). 30% of transaction fees are rebated to the contracts touched by the transaction and 70% are burned.
What affects future yields?
Like with many other protocols inflation affects yields on NEAR Protocol. Over time with the growth in usage (transactions and fees) of the protocol inflation will gradually decrease and potentially even become deflationary (see graphic). For more information click here.
Do I maintain custody of my NEAR tokens?
Who or what controls my staked NEAR token? Self-custody or third-party; the protocol controls staked NEAR tokens. Figment has partnerships with a number of top-in-class custodians. Please contact [email protected] for more inquiries.
NEAR Protocol takes control of your NEAR tokens while you are staking. If you unbond your tokens, this process will take 36 to 48 hours before the protocol returns your tokens to you. While your NEAR tokens are staked, you will earn staking rewards and your validator will vote in on-chain governance on your behalf.
Last modified 5mo ago