The NEAR protocol is an open source decentralized PoS public chain platform. The protocol uses sharding technology and is very friendly to developers. On the other hand, NEAR is also a cloud platform driven by the community. Technically speaking, the NEAR protocol has the advantages of high scalability and low development cost. The NEAR platform also supports a large number of tools, from browsers, wallet applications, and other common components, which can help developers build applications easily and quickly.
The NEAR protocol is not controlled by any legal entity, but is maintained by a group of geeks. The NEAR team has award-winning champions from programming competitions and financial professionals who have worked in the cryptocurrency industry for many years.
The NEAR protocol uses sharding technology, but it is not an Ethereum side chain, but an independent PoS public chain. It has its own consensus mechanism and native token format. NEAR can be regarded as a competitor to Ethereum.
Introduction to NEAR protocol fragmentation technology
As we all know, every node in Bitcoin needs to run all the code. As the blockchain grows, the code increases day by day. This is actually a waste of resources. In order to solve this problem, the NEAR protocol uses a fragmentation technology to divide the blockchain network so that many nodes can perform calculations at the same time, thereby improving efficiency. Although Ethereum 2.0 also proposes sharding technology, it has very high hardware requirements and requires at least 32 ETH to be pledged to run a node. In the NEAR protocol, NEAR allows small enough nodes to run on the cloud, and a low threshold means a high degree of decentralization.
Ethereum's sharding technology has multiple blockchains. Unlike Ethereum, the NEAR protocol is a single blockchain. Simply put, Ethereum sharding separates the ledger, and different nodes manage a part, so that everyone does not need to store it all; Near sharding is in the same ledger block, and then subdivided, the entire ledger block remains unchanged.
The NEAR protocol is like a traditional blockchain. Each block contains all transactions of all shards, but this data does not exist in a single physical block; therefore, each node does not need to store all the data. On the contrary, validators only store the transactions of their specific shards, and the list of all transactions in the block is physically stored in the "chunk" of each validator in the network. This model can ensure that NEAR will not double spend in cross-shard transactions without sacrificing high throughput. The "chunk" design and continuous reallocation of resources enable NEAR to achieve more efficient cross-shard communication.
NEAR has three core technical highlights:
Dynamic sharding is one of them. With the increase in usage, the technology can flexibly provide expansion capabilities according to demand, and does not require developers to release a new blockchain, transfer contracts, etc.
Account model-The secret key is hidden from the user, and some new use cases will emerge as a result: Meta transactions, payment using other cryptocurrencies, and the NEAR Drop function. With this feature, it is even possible to transfer assets to users who do not yet have a wallet. As we all know, in public chains such as Ethereum and Bitcoin, users need to keep their private keys in order to have an account. The NEAR Protocol does not require users to remember the public key and private key, they only need to be familiar with the username to use it. And all the handling fees for Dapp on NEAR will be borne by the developer, giving users a perfect sense of experience. But when users use Dapp, they don't even need to understand the profound knowledge of blockchain. This is also the future trend, simplification and popularization.
Trust-free Ethereum Bridge-the link between Ethereum and NEAR, any ERC-20 assets or non-homogeneous tokens (NFTs) can be transferred between the two chains through this tool; in addition, NEAR can also use this The tool calls the Ethereum contract.
From a technical point of view, NEAR Protocol greatly reduces the barriers to entry for developers. NEAR is compatible with Rust, Solidity, and TypeScript, and is perfectly compatible with the cross-chain Polkadot contract. This is also more conducive to more Web3 projects in the future. Development and integration.
Thresholded Proof of Stake and POS algorithms have certain similarities, such as the ability to exchange Stake Token for network rewards. On the other hand, Thresholded Proof of Stake should be safer in terms of system damage. In TPoS, there is no leader node that can be manipulated maliciously, and witnesses are rotated out of all the fragments in detail. In addition, participants who want to act as witnesses need to lock a certain amount of tokens. Once the participant has malicious behavior, the pledged tokens will be deducted.
Due to the unique design, the TPS of the NEAR network is about 1000, but the number of nodes is currently only 162.
NEAR tokens and investment institutions
According to public information on the official website, there are a total of 24 investment institutions under the NEAR agreement, including well-known institutions such as a16 Capital, Coinbase etc.
The main functions of NEAR tokens are as follows:
NEAR is the native token of the NEAR protocol, and its first role is to protect network security. Since running nodes need to pledge NEAR tokens, they can be punished once they do evil. This mechanism can effectively guarantee network security.
Medium of transaction. Users need to use NEAR as a transaction medium when trading in NEAR. Used for network governance voting to determine the distribution method of network resources and the future technical direction of the protocol. The initial supply of NEAR tokens is 1 billion. An additional 5% of the supply is issued each year as a block reward, 90% of which is allocated to validators (4.5% in total), and 10% is allocated to the protocol reserve pool (0.5% in total). 30% of the transaction fee is paid as a rebate for the contract interacting with the transaction, and the remaining 70% is destroyed.
NEAR seems to me to be a very complete platform using fragmentation technology as a security protocol in a PoS system. I find it absolutely necessary in a blockchain where stake token holding is the greatest way to gain influence. Even more, for the benefit of the great Holders who must work in a trust-generating environment where their assets are free of threats, such as: Sybil attacks, identity duplication, or some other type of hacking that makes the structure of the company vulnerable. blockchain and its security protocol putting your virtual assets at risk. Great article, Well done, I follow you ekrem ...