What Is Near Protocol (NEAR)? Features, Tokenomics, and Price Prediction

Near Protocol (NEAR) is a layer-one blockchain that aims to solve the problems of slow transaction rates, limited throughput, and poor compatibility. The Near Protocol (NEAR) is a decentralized application platform that can revolutionize systems, develop applications and change how users utilize the web in general.

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How Does Near Protocol (NEAR) Work?

NEAR is a community-run cloud infrastructure for the deployment and operation of decentralized applications. It offers the characteristics of both a decentralized database and a serverless computation platform. The token that allows this platform to function also allows apps built on top of it to interact in novel ways.

It's a complicated technology with a singular objective which is to make it easy for engineers and innovators to create products that safeguard high-value assets like money and identity while also being performant and useful for users.

NEAR is designed from the bottom up to give end-users with simple interactions, scale capacity over millions of devices, and enable developers with new and sustainable monetization models for their apps. As a result, NEAR is constructing the world's first community-run cloud capable of increasing the breadth of Open Finance and ensuring the future of the Open Web.

It is a blockchain-based decentralized application platform that is arranged to be permissionless, highly functional, and safe enough to produce a powerful and decentralized data layer for the future web, and it operates on hundreds of servers globally.

NEAR is fundamentally a platform for hosting apps that have access to a shared and secure pool of money, identity, and data that their users control. In terms of technology, it integrates partition-resistant networking, serverless computation, and distributed storage into a novel system.

Unique Features Of Near Protocol (NEAR)

Focus on Usability

Developers will only create apps that their consumers will really utilize. By deferring onboarding, removing the need for users to understand blockchain ideas, and limiting the amount of permission-asking interactions the user must engage in, the app may be made more user-friendly.

The Near Protocol follows a usability-first approach, which promotes its 'progressive security' model and allows developers to create experiences for their users that more closely resemble familiar web experiences. This means that the Near platform offers simple onboarding, easy subscriptions, familiar usage styles, and predictable pricing to its user to make it more 'usability-centric' as outlined in their official whitepaper.

Sharding Approach

NEAR employs a sharding strategy, which enables the network's capacity to grow as more nodes join. When network utilization is high enough, the network nodes are dynamically split into numerous shards, and computing is parallelized over those shards. With this method, the network may scale up and down according to the demand.

To grow, a future-proof protocol should shard both state and processing. Without widespread use of the platform, no computer would be able to store or validate all of the chain's information or transactions.

The NEAR Protocol optimizes speed by assuming that transactions would touch several shards by default, which is the most likely behavior for arbitrary smart contracts.

A New Business Model and a Focus on 'Real' Decentralization

To preserve true decentralization, the network must enable permissionless engagement from potential node operators, rather than incentivizing pooling. To overcome these issues, NEAR Protocol employs a staking technique known as "Thresholded Proof of Stake," which is supposed to be both predictable and generally fair, avoiding the pooling of powerful validators while encouraging widespread involvement from nodes.

Lowering the entrance barriers for nodes achieves more than just network decentralization. The more nodes that can join in a dynamically scaling system like NEAR's, the more it can grow.

NEAR also enables developers and businesses to monetize their infrastructure in a more secure, less invasive, and lawful manner. When a contract is invoked, a part of the network's fees are immediately assigned to it and can be withdrawn by the contract's creator.

This encourages early infrastructure development while also providing a commercial model for application and infrastructure developers to profit from their work without having to create their own ill-advised tokens.

Governance

The governance of NEAR is intended to allow for fast protocol improvement while also giving the community enough input and supervision to secure the protocol's independence.

Long-term objectives include combining community-led creativity with efficient decision and execution, as well as receiving sufficient representation of each of the network's important stakeholder positions.

Use Cases of the Near Protocol (NEAR) Token

The NEAR token is the ecosystem's primary native asset, and all accounts have access to it. Each token, identical to Ether, is a one-of-a-kind digital asset that may be used to:

For completing transactions and keeping data, you must pay the system.
Participate in the staking procedure to run a validating node as part of the network.
Participating in governance procedures can help influence how network resources are distributed and where the network's future technological direction will go.

The NEAR token facilitates the economical synchronization of all network members, as well as novel behaviors among the apps created on top of the network.

Participating in development bounties, operating a community that enables people to build on NEAR, winning a NEAR hackathon, or being an active member of the community are all ways to earn the NEAR token.

Near Protocol (NEAR) Tokenomics

The total and maximum token supply of NEAR tokens is 1,000,000,000 while the current circulating supply is 599,351,223.00 NEAR.

A detailed deep dive on the tokenomics of the NEAR token can be found here.

Near Protocol (NEAR) Price

Near Protocol (NEAR) is now trading at around $13.73, as of Dec. 29, 2021. Its 24-hour trading volume on exchanges is around $710,275,838.

Near Protocol (NEAR) Price Prediction and Future Outlook

Any platform that has its own blockchain has seen immense growth in the world of cryptocurrencies. If you look at the top 20 ranked cryptocurrencies in the world, almost every coin has its own blockchain, including ETH, LUNA, AVAX, SOL, and many others. This is because having a secure blockchain network gains the trust of major investors, also known as institutional investors.

Adding on to the reasoning mentioned above, it must also be noted that NEAR Protocol was founded by a former Wall Street guy with plenty of entrepreneurial experience under his belt with his co-founders Illia Poposukhin and Alexander Skidanov having worked at Google and Microsoft respectively. With business-minded people and engineers at the helm of the NEAR Protocol, investors have been very keen about investing in this project which explains the immense growth the Near Protocol has shown since its inception.

The NEAR token was launched in late 2020 and since then the token has seen a rise of over 2500% with its all-time high standing at $16.33, a feat which was achieved on Dec 27, 2021. Looking at the NEAR chart, it can be seen that in the post-May 2021 bear market, the NEAR token has seen a linear growth and a major spike in this month as the token’s value, which was hovering around $8, doubled in value to $16.

The daily chart of the NEAR token also appears to be bullish with its RSI hovering around 60. This might be a good opportunity to invest as many crypto experts are seeing a price rise to $50 in the near future. With that being said, Bitcoin can become a party pooper as it is extremely volatile at this point and its recent drop from the 50k zone is also not a good sign. So, it is better to consult crypto experts and DYOR before investing in any cryptocurrency right now.

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