NEAR Protocol
Time factors
| Protocol time | Human readable time | |
|---|---|---|
Protocol time 1 | Block | 1 second |
Protocol time 2 | Epoch (= 43,200 blocks) | 12 hours |
First reward delay | 2 epochs | 24 hours |
Reward frequency | At the beginning of every epoch | 12 hours |
Unbonding period | 4 epochs | 48 hours |
The protocol has an implicit block time target of 1 second. Actual block times can fluctuate depending on network conditions.
Lifecycle
Must know before staking
Minimum staking amount | ✅ | 0.1 NEAR |
Partial stake changes | ❌ | |
Partial reward withdrawal | ❌ | |
Compounding | ✅ | |
Penalty | ⚠️ | |
Slashing | ❌ |
Delegation happens on a smart contract. Each validator has its own dedicated staking pool smart contract that helps pool stake.
Validators can be kicked out. A validator that falls below the uptime threshold (90%) for a given epoch will not receive any rewards and will be kicked out of the active set. The uptime for each validator in an epoch is defined as .
Rewards are added directly to staking balance.
Advanced topics
Rewards
Rewards come from newly issued tokens and transaction fees.
Inflation rate applied to total token supply. The protocol has a fixed inflation rate of 5% applied to total supply. 10% of this newly issued tokens are sent to the protocol’s treasury. The other 90% is distributed to stakers.
Transaction fees. 30% of all transaction fees are directed to contract creators while the remaining 70% is distributed to stakers.
Factors that impact realized rewards.
Validator performance. Rewards for a validator is reduced by the portion of missed blocks.
Risk
The protocol does not have any penalties or slashing.
Validators can be kicked out. A validator that falls below the uptime threshold (90%) for a given epoch will not receive any rewards and will be kicked out of the active set. The uptime for each validator in an epoch is defined as .
Validators
Total validator cap | ❌ | |
Validator requirements | ⚠️ |
The protocol has a dynamic stake requirement for validators. All validators need to maintain the stake requirement to remain part of the active set.
Resources
NEAR documentation: https://docs.near.org/
NEAR Protocol specification: https://nomicon.io/
NEAR whitepaper, Economics in a sharded blockchain: https://near.org/papers/economics-in-sharded-blockchain/
NEAR explorer: https://explorer.near.org/
Last updated
