NEAR Protocol Half Decade of Milestones: Highlights

NEAR Protocol marked five years since its mainnet launch on October 13, 2020, with a series of developments that have expanded its technical capabilities and ecosystem. Founded by Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov, the protocol began as an AI-focused startup in 2017 before shifting to blockchain in 2018 to tackle issues like scalability and usability. 

Since its mainnet launch five years ago, the Layer 1 blockchain platform reported nine shards operational, block times of 600 milliseconds, finality in 1.2 seconds, over $2 billion in intents volume, support for more than 120 cross-chain assets, upwards of 50 million active addresses, more than 50 startups building on the platform, 500 validator seats, over 550 million NEAR tokens staked, more than 2,000 members in the NEAR Legion community, and 100% uptime. 

These figures reflect the protocol's focus on sharding technology, account abstraction, and intent-based transactions, which have positioned it for applications in decentralized finance, non-fungible tokens, and AI-integrated systems.

Founding and Pivot to Blockchain

The origins of NEAR Protocol trace back to 2017, when Polosukhin, a former Google machine learning researcher, and Skidanov, previously at MemSQL, established NEAR AI. The initial aim was to explore program synthesis and AI-driven code generation. However, difficulties with global payments for contributors led to an interest in blockchain solutions. 

By 2018, the team pivoted to developing NEAR Protocol, a blockchain designed for linear scalability through sharding, improved usability via account abstraction, and developer accessibility with support for programming languages such as JavaScript and Rust. The goal was to facilitate onboarding for up to 1 billion users.

Polosukhin's background includes co-authoring the 2017 paper "Attention Is All You Need," which laid the groundwork for transformer models in AI. This AI expertise influenced NEAR's design, emphasizing infrastructure for autonomous agents and user-owned data systems. The protocol's sharding mechanism, known as Nightshade, distributes computational workload across multiple shards to handle increased transaction volumes without slowing down the network.

Mainnet Launch Phases

NEAR's mainnet rollout occurred in stages. In April 2020, Phase 0, or Genesis Launch, initiated the network with the creation of 1 billion NEAR tokens. This phase made the network operational but with restrictions, allowing for staking and governance activities. By September 2020, Phase I transitioned the network to community-operated status, broadening validator participation.

The full mainnet, Phase II, launched on October 13, 2020, enabling token transfers, decentralized applications, smart contracts, and governance through Thresholded Proof of Stake. This handover to community governance marked complete decentralization. The following day, NEAR tokens began trading on exchanges like Binance. Since then, the network has maintained uninterrupted operation, a key factor in its reliability for developers and users.

Key Technical Upgrades and Sharding Advancements

Post-launch, NEAR implemented several upgrades to enhance performance. Here’s a detailed year-by-year breakdown:
 

2021 Milestones: In 2021, Simple Nightshade introduced Phase 0 sharding, the initial step in distributing data and computations across shards. This laid the foundation for NEAR Protocol's scalability efforts by allowing the network to handle increased loads more efficiently through parallel processing.

September 2022 Developments: This was followed by Phase One sharding in September 2022, further refining throughput. The update built on the initial sharding implementation, optimizing how transactions and data were managed across the network to improve overall performance.

March 2023 Announcement: By March 2023, NEAR announced the Blockchain Operating System, a layer for creating open web experiences compatible with multiple blockchains. This system aimed to provide a unified framework for developers to build decentralized applications that could interact seamlessly across different blockchain environments.

October to December 2023 Updates: Later that year, from October to December 2023, protocol updates included the release of Nearcore version 1.36.0. Partnerships formed with Polygon Labs for a zero-knowledge WebAssembly prover, Nym for privacy enhancements, and Eigen Labs for fast finality on Ethereum layer-2 solutions. NEAR also launched data availability services for Ethereum rollups, expanding its utility in supporting other networks' scaling needs.

January 2024 Changes: In January 2024, the NEAR Wallet evolved into a wallet hub, while Stake Wars IV tested Phase Two sharding through stateless validation. These initiatives focused on improving user interfaces and validating advanced sharding techniques to reduce the resource requirements for node operators.

March 2025 Enhancements: March 2025 brought Resharding V3 in protocol versions 74 to 76, activating a cross-shard bandwidth scheduler and state synchronization improvements. These features addressed bottlenecks in inter-shard communication and ensured more consistent data handling across the network.

May 2025 Speed Improvements: Significant speed enhancements arrived in May 2025 with 600-millisecond block times and 1.2-second finality in version 77, outperforming Solana in block speed and Ethereum by a factor of 600 in finality time. This update included global contracts under NEP-591 and Optimistic Block execution for reduced latency, enabling faster transaction confirmations and broader application support.

June and July 2025 Proposals and Fixes: In June and July 2025, proposals were made to reduce the maximum inflation rate from 5% to 2.5%, alongside fixes in Nearcore version 2.6.5 for block production issues. These adjustments aimed to stabilize the token supply and resolve technical glitches that could affect network reliability.

August 2025 Additions: In version 79, August 2025 introduced a ninth shard, which increased throughput by 12.5%. Additionally, NEP-536 adjusted refund mechanisms. Staked NEAR exceeded 600 million tokens, reflecting growing community participation and network security.

September 2025 Expansions: Version 80 of September 2025 expanded cross-chain integrations with Aptos, Tron, and Cardano into intents, introduced Zashi CrossPay for shielded payments, raised validator seats to 500 with a minimum of 105 per shard, and released Nearcore 2.8.0. These updates enhanced interoperability and privacy features while scaling the validation infrastructure.

Ecosystem Growth and Partnerships

2022 Transaction and Wallet Metrics: Throughout 2022, NEAR processed over 164 million transactions and created millions of wallets, reaching 10 million by May. This period highlighted the protocol's growing adoption in terms of user activity and on-chain interactions.

2022 Partnerships and Community Initiatives: Partnerships included collaborations with SailGP, alongside community initiatives like Hacker House events and workshops. These efforts focused on fostering developer engagement and real-world applications.

July 2025 Intents Performance: By July 2025, NEAR Intents handled over $570 million in volume, more than 1.2 million swaps, and supported 100 assets. This demonstrated the system's capacity for cross-chain transactions.

July 2025 Integrations and Launches: Integrations with Sui and BitGo coincided with launches such as:

• NEAR House of Stake AI Copilot
• SurgeSwap
• MoreMarkets
• HOT Craft 

August 2025 Intents Growth: Intents volume grew to $900 million by August, following the addition of Stellar integration. This marked a continued upward trend in transaction handling and asset support.

October 2025 Intents Milestones: As of October 2025, intents surpassed $2 billion in volume, 1.8 million swaps, and 120 assets, with monthly figures nearly doubling. These metrics reflected rapid expansion in multi-chain operations.

October 2025 Blockchain Volume: Daily blockchain volume exceeded $80 million, surpassing Ethereum, Solana, and Polygon in multi-chain activity, driven by projects like HOT DAO. This positioned NEAR as a competitive player in decentralized finance.

October 2025 Ecosystem Overview: The ecosystem includes over 50 startups, with Chain Signatures enabling control of networks like Solana and TON from NEAR. This feature supports unified management across blockchains.

October 2025 Network Performance: With 8 to 9 shards, the network achieves 300 times the throughput and 50% lower latency. Sharding contributes directly to these efficiency gains.

Governance Shift via House of Stake: Governance is shifting via the House of Stake roadmap, announced on October 9, 2025, outlining four phases:

• Assembly
• Alignment
• Activation
• Autonomy 

The governance initiative went live on the mainnet on October 13. 

Fifth Anniversary Events: The fifth anniversary on October 13, 2025, featured:

• A stats highlight video
• Discussions on an interim constitution
• veNEAR rewards with a 280,000 NEAR budget
• Validator support
• AI-driven governance tools

Future Roadmap Elements

NEAR's documented roadmap includes targets for 1 million transactions per second, omnichain features such as Omnitoken and Omnibridge, sharded smart contracts, and expanded AI integrations like trusted execution environment support for Chain Signatures and AI agents in the Shade Agent Sandbox. 

Partnerships with Bitwise, managing over $12 billion in assets for staking exchange-traded products, and Everclear, with more than $1 billion in volume, support these efforts. Challenges involve balancing decentralization with expansion, though the protocol's history indicates sustained performance.

Conclusion

Over five years, NEAR Protocol has developed from an AI startup into a layer-1 blockchain with operational sharding, fast block times, and cross-chain intents handling billions in volume. Its milestones, including consistent upgrades and partnerships, demonstrate capabilities in scalability and AI integration that address specific blockchain constraints. 

This track record reflects the protocol's role in supporting decentralized applications and multi-chain operations, providing a foundation for developers focused on high-throughput systems. Maintaining this focus on technical reliability will remain central to its ongoing contributions in the sector.

Sources:

• NEAR Protocol Official X Account - https://x.com/NEARProtocol
• CoinMarketCap NEAR Analysis - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/near-protocol/
• Blockchain.com Explorer for NEAR - https://www.blockchain.com/explorer/assets/near
• NEAR Protocol Launches 600ms Blocks, 1.2-Second Finality Unlocking DeFi Use Cases: https://thedefiant.io/news/blockchains/near-protocol-launches-600ms-blocks-1-2-second-finality-unlocking-defi-use-cases-490247d4 
• NEAR Docs and Guides: https://docs.near.org/ 
• NEAR History: https://www.near.org/roadmap-history