NEAR
NEAR Protocol · L1 + Intents
Key facts
- Circulating 1.31B, 100%
- No cap: supply can keep growing, see Supply discipline
Market data: CoinGecko, Oct 24, 2026. Scores reviewed Oct 23, 2026.
Assessment
NEAR's engine is monetary rather than cash flow: about $186M of NEAR and its liquid staking tokens is posted on Burrow, a third-party lender, while the 70% gas burn acts on tiny fees and the Intents-fee buyback is discretionary and held in a multisig, with ~$0.9M/yr reaching holders. Inflation is capped at 2.5%/yr since the 2025 cut from 5%, and genesis vesting has ended. Staking is broad, with 593M NEAR over 397 validators putting a halt at ~$1B, but one client runs the chain. What holds it back is distribution: backers, team and Foundation pools took ~88% of the 1B genesis, still ~67% of today's supply.
How value reaches holders
70% of gas is burned, but on only ~$1.3-2.7M/yr of chain fees; the Intents-fee buyback launched Feb 2026 is discretionary (NEAR Foundation, Feb 24: 'governance retains full discretion'), runs ad hoc, and bought NEAR is held in a multisig rather than burned. DefiLlama tracks ~$0.9M/yr reaching holders (Oct 19, 2026). Inflation halved to 2.5%
Score anatomy
Demand
18 / 45: the stronger of two routes, plus adoptionWhy would anyone hold it: does value reach the token, and is the network or product used today?
The Intents-fee buyback is discretionary and held in a multisig; DefiLlama tracks ~$0.9M/yr reaching holders
Small or discretionary flows, plumbing under 25%, or buy-and-hold into a treasuryHow this is scored
$25-100M/yr
~$186M of NEAR and NEAR LSTs (LiNEAR $81M, rNEAR $54M, stNEAR $37M, NEAR $14M) posted on Burrow, a third-party lender (DefiLlama, Oct 23, 2026).
Measurable niche monetary use: payment rails, savings products, or collateral at third-party venues below the next levelmedium confidenceHow this is scored
NEAR chain TVL $0.23B and fees $1.24M TTM (-75% YoY); NEAR Intents is the live product ($53M fees, ~$32B volume TTM) but small next to leading chains
Niche: real but small use, far behind its category leadersmedium confidenceHow this is scored
Two routes, the stronger counts
Soundness
20 / 40Can a long-term holder trust the rules: supply, float, distribution and control?
Protocol inflation capped at 2.5%/yr since the 2025 cut from 5%, with a 70% gas burn on tiny fees; the rate changes by validator-adopted protocol upgrade.
1-3%/yr on a published curve, or 3-7%/yr under a hard cap with halvingsmedium confidenceHow this is scored
All 1.31B issued NEAR counts as circulating and genesis vesting has ended; no scheduled unlocks (Foundation treasury size undisclosed).
Fully vested, no scheduled unlocksmedium confidenceHow this is scored
Backers 17.6% + small backers 6.1%, core team 14%, Foundation endowment and grant pools ~50%: ~88% of the 1B genesis (~67% of today's 1.31B); the 12% CoinList sale (Aug 2020, $0.40) was above backer prices
Insiders received over 50%, or one organization directs over 30% todaymedium confidenceHow this is scored
593M NEAR staked over 397 validators (top 5.6%, 10 reach 1/3), so a halt costs ~$1B at $4.93; one client (nearcore); Jul 2025 bug cut output to ~0.1 blocks/s for ~30 min but blocks kept coming
Attack cost $100M-1B with the top entity under 35%, or contracts immutable or upgradeable only by on-chain vote with a 7+ day exit window on a base layer scoring 4+medium confidenceHow this is scored
Durability
10 / 15Is it big, proven and reachable by institutions?
$6.4B market cap (band 4), $1.0B/day median volume (band 5), no flags.
Major: $1-10B market cap and $50M/day+How this is scored
Token transfers since Oct 13, 2020 (6.0 years); fell 96% from $20.6 (Jan 2022) to $0.84 (Feb 2026); no coordinated halt found in the last 5 years.
5-8 years and survived an 80%+ drawdownmedium confidenceHow this is scored
US spot NEAR ETFs hold $85.2M (SoSoValue, Oct 22, 2026), under $500M; Valour Near ETP in Europe.
One US spot ETF, or US ETFs under $500Mhigh confidenceHow this is scored
What would move it up
To reach T2 Strong, 4 gates are still open:
- Score 48needs 55(open)
- Value engine 2needs 3(open)
- Adoption 2needs 3(open)
- Distribution 0needs 1(open)
- Supply 3gate 2(met)
- Security 3gate 2(met)
- Float and unlocks 5gate 1(met)
- Scale 4gate 3(met)
Tier outlook
Stable
- Distribution stays at 0 while genesis insiders account for over half of all NEAR ever issued (~67% today)
- Holder routing rises if Intents-fee buybacks are burned by rule instead of held in a multisig
- Usage rises to 3 if NEAR posted at third-party lenders passes $1B (~$186M on Oct 23, 2026)
- Security rises to 4 only with a second production client alongside nearcore
Compare with
How the ranking works and how NEAR compares: see the full ranking. This entry as JSON:
GET https://tokens.10102.io/api/v1/tokenomics?symbol=NEAR