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NEAR Protocol reached a 1 million transactions per second benchmark in late 2025, expanding its focus on AI infrastructure and cross-chain interoperability.
NEAR Protocol experienced a transformative fourth quarter in 2025, marked by significant technical milestones and a strategic pivot toward becoming a foundation for the agentic economy [1]. The platform successfully demonstrated a publicly verifiable benchmark of one million transactions per second (TPS) using actual code on consumer hardware [1].
Key takeaways
The network’s technical evolution in late 2025 included the expansion to nine shards with full dynamic resharding capabilities and the launch of sharded smart contracts [1]. These upgrades, combined with a validator set that grew to 500 nodes, were designed to enhance the platform's scalability and decentralization [1]. Beyond raw throughput, NEAR introduced the NEAR AI Cloud, which provides hardware-enforced confidential inference backed by cryptographic proofs, a feature intended to support sensitive autonomous agent operations [1].
The platform’s growth is also tied to the maturation of NEAR Intents, a solver-based architecture that allows users to specify desired outcomes for cross-chain execution [1]. This framework has integrated with exchanges such as CoW Swap and ThorSwap, facilitating over 13 million swaps involving more than 125 assets [1]. Additionally, the project has focused on developer resources, including new SDKs and social login features, to lower barriers for building decentralized applications [1].
NEAR Protocol is increasingly positioned as a vertically integrated service provider for AI-driven commerce and decentralized finance [1]. By bridging scalable blockchain infrastructure with AI-powered tools, the project aims to support developers building applications that interact with automated agents [3]. Looking ahead to 2026, the roadmap includes the release of IronClaw for confidential agents, enhanced private intents, and a unified super-app designed to span over 35 different chains [1]. As the ecosystem matures, it continues to attract institutional attention, with various trusts and ETPs listed by firms such as Grayscale and Bitwise [1].
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NEAR Protocol is a sharded, proof-of-stake blockchain designed to serve as infrastructure for decentralized applications and an AI-focused 'agent economy'.
The NEAR mainnet officially launched in April 2020, initially operating in a restricted proof-of-authority mode.
Yes, the platform has experienced security incidents, including a $3 million exploit of the Skyward Finance project in 2022 and a compromised Discord moderator account in 2023.
AI-assisted synthesis by the TrendWatcher Editorial Desk · sourced from 3 outlets · Jun 12, 2026 · How we report
House of Stake is NEAR’s stake-based, onchain governance system used to coordinate protocol upgrades, economic parameters, and treasury decisions.