INTRODUCTION
What is Near Protocol ?
Near Protocol is a layer 1 blockchain like Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche and they use proof-of-stake like lot of other blockchains do. But what makes them special is their sharding implementation which few other blockchain can boast. Their mainnet went live in mid 2020 and the sharding implementation went live in Nov 2021.
LONG TERM TEAM
Near Team consists of some of the best developers and researchers in the world hailing from Google mem squad, and some of them even won an International programming compitition before.
Project token gets value depending upon its utility
NEAR UTILITY
In terms of the token it's called $NEAR and is use for the following...
* Paying Transaction Fees
* Storing Data On Chain
* Voting On Governance Proposals
* And Rewarding Validators
Here are some of the cool reasons that will also insist you to bet on Near Protocol
# 1 GREAT ARCHITECTURE
Their network boasts 3,000 transactions per second and finality in 2 second and gas fees of around one cent. Those are stealler numbers of course but the interesting part is how they accomplished that, and one way they accomplished that is through their sharding implementation and it's called Nightshade.
Nightshade lets them scale linearly with the number of shareds so that they will always be able to satisfy demand as adoption grows. Other blockchains without sharding may seem scalable now but they will eventually hit an upper limit, on what they can handle.
Near protocol also has some exciting stuff on the roadmap like chunk sharding which lower the hardware requirements for validators.
And dynamic resharding which allows the network to adjust the number of shards based on utilization so they can handle usage spikes better.
Besides I like is the Near staking design.
For example, many blockchains make you wait a long time after unstaking before you can move around your coins again.
But for Near their unbonding period is only one to two days while Cosmos and Polkadot make you wait three to four weeks.
Near staking process is also designed to disincentivize big pools. They do this with something called Threshold Proof Of Stake which guarantees that you get your fair share even if you are staking with a smaller amount.
The benefit here is that the network can become more decentralized if we don't have a bunch of super pools dominating the show.
All right next up my point number two is that Near excels at
#2 INTEROPERABILITY
There's really a three pieces to the puzzle here first,
★AURORA
Which is an Ethereum Virtual Machine builds directly on the Near Protocol. Aurora let's developer bring over their existing dapps and run them with fast speeds and low fees.
The second piece of puzzle is the..
★ RAINBOW BRIDGE
Which facilitates assets transfer between Ethereum and Near. And it supports all Erc20 tokens. And so far there's been almost 900 million dollars worth of assets bridge over.
Finally, the thrid piece is..
★ OCTOPUS NETWORK
Which is network that lets you launch applications specific blockchains. It's built on Near but it also contains some of the best parts of polkadot and cosmos.
For example, any app chain that launches on Octopus will have out of the box interoperability with any IPC enabled blockchain. Octopus also utilities a leased security model.
Anyways the overwhelming takeaway here is that Near has so many options and features for interoperability and that can only help them grow because it enables more users and assets to flow their ecosystem.
Now Interoperability is cool but at the end of the day you need builders that are dedicated to your ecosystem and Near gets this which is why my point number three is they are...
#3 SUPER DEVELOPER FRIENDLY
For example, Near is compatible with EVM, RUST and WASM so developer can choose from several popular languages to write their smart contracts, and if their smart contracts get used they get royalties from it too. Thirty percent of the gas fees from people using their smart contracts flows back to them which is freaking amazing because thats incentives directly built in on the protocol level.
But that's not enough there's also the massive 800Million dollars funds that would be spread out across team in their ecosystem.
And that's one of the largest ecosystem funds in the entire crypto space, and it really speaks to their dedication to help developers succeed that's why I am surprised at all to see Near coming in at number three overall in terms of ecosystem with fastest growing full time developers.
But in terms of long term success builders are the only half of the story. There's also the end users that need to be taken care of. And Near understands this which is why my point number four that they are designed to be as...
#4 USER FRIENDLY
Near has human readable addresses like Kevin.near and thats built in directly on the protocol layer rather than having some separate dapp implemented. They also let developers prepay gas for their application which means we can enjoy a gas free experience.
There's also something called Near drops which allows you to send some $NEAR tokens through a link. So they can receive it even if they don't have a wallet or account. Speaking of their wallet you could stake directly from it and even it has a defined token list so you don't have to add all those random tokens yourself.
Lastly they have,
#5 PREDICTABLE PRICING GAS FEES
So you don't have to worry about overpaying like we do on Ethereum sometimes. To be honest all of these features may seem small but together they add up to an amazing user experience that I wish every chain would offer.
Now you are probably ultra bullish and itching to buy some $NEAR for long term.
Conclusion
Near is here to stay and dominate the entire blockchain space. Near is undisputed tech giant with its unshakeable cool features, and best developers and researchers around the world which only helps Near to grow in long term. This is the reason why I am still bullish on $NEAR irrespective of current scenario. What else do you need to get on the board?