Wrapped Near is the wrapped representation of NEAR Protocol's native token, designed to make NEAR usable across other blockchain ecosystems. NEAR Protocol itself is a high-performance platform built to power decentralized applications and intelligent agents, combining user-owned AI, intents and chain abstraction, and a sharded blockchain architecture for scalable, low-cost execution .
Currently Interesting
There were no significant developments specific to Wrapped Near in the past 7 days.
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NEAR's First Halving and Tokenomics Overhaul. NEAR is approaching its first halving, reducing annual inflation from 5% to 2.5%, with protocol upgrade voting to version 81 scheduled to begin on Oct. 28, 2025 23. The change also adjusts the expected staking yield to approximately 4.75%, assuming 50% of supply remains staked 2. This matters because it marks a structural shift toward a more sustainable token economy, supported by complementary governance proposals to protect decentralization 4.
Validator Support and veNEAR Rewards Programs. Two proposals accompany the halving: HSP-002, a one-quarter program distributing 150 NEAR to each of the 100 smallest validators maintaining at least 97% uptime in Q4 2025, and HSP-003, a 90-day incentive program with a 280,682 NEAR budget targeting migration of 60 million NEAR to the House of Stake 56. These programs aim to prevent validator centralization and boost governance participation as inflation declines 7.
NEAR Intents Growth. NEAR Intents has processed over $1.8 billion in volume and supported 3.6 million swaps across 121 assets in less than a year, functioning as a universal, trustless transaction layer for multi-chain activity 8. The system relies on off-chain solvers, a trustless verifier contract, and NEAR's chain signatures and sharding to enable near-instant settlements 8. This positions NEAR as foundational infrastructure for multi-chain DeFi and AI-driven economies 8.
Biggest Stories of 2025
Nearcore v2.10.3 released, optimizing network traffic for state snapshot distribution and data copying to help archival nodes keep pace with the chain. (December 16, 2025) 9
Nearcore v2.10.2 security upgrade released, requiring node operators to upgrade immediately to avoid downtime from a critical flaw that could crash nodes. (December 11, 2025) 10
NEAR AI Cloud and Private Chat launched, offering hardware-backed verifiable privacy where requests run inside Intel TDX and NVIDIA Confidential Computing hardware, with each inference generating a cryptographic attestation. (December 3, 2025) 11
NEAR AI announced IronClaw, a confidential GPU marketplace, and multimodal confidential inference, expanding its privacy-preserving AI infrastructure. (December 17, 2025) 12
Starknet went live on NEAR Intents, expanding the protocol's cross-chain transaction capabilities. (December 18, 2025) 13
NEAR's privacy vision advanced, with the team emphasizing AI infrastructure incorporating verifiability, privacy, and content provenance, and noting a revival in privacy tech adoption. (November 24, 2025)
Nearcore v2.9.0 released, introducing the protocol upgrade from version 80 to 81 and reducing the maximum NEAR inflation rate from 5% to 2.5%. (October 20, 2025) 3
Protocol Version 81 upgrade scheduled, with voting to begin Oct. 28, 2025, requiring validators to upgrade to Nearcore v2.9.0 to remain in consensus. (October 20, 2025) 2
NEAR's upcoming halving and incentivization plans detailed, including a quarterly reward of 150 NEAR for smaller validators and increased rewards for veNEAR holders. (October 21, 2025) 7
NEAR tokenomics upgrade outlined, covering the inflation halving, Validator Support Program, and veNEAR Holder Rewards Program, all in a community sensing phase. (October 21, 2025) 4
NEAR Intents traction highlighted, processing over $1.8 billion in volume and 3.6 million swaps across 121 assets. (October 10, 2025) 8
House of Stake Governance Transition Plan discussed, outlining a four-phase decentralization process from Assembly to Autonomy. (October 6, 2025) 15
NEAR House of Stake Interim Constitution proposed, establishing a temporary stake-weighted governance framework through veNEAR effective until May 31, 2026. (October 13, 2025) 16
Validator Support Program (HSP-002) discussed, proposing a one-quarter program to support the 100 smallest validators following inflation reduction. (October 13, 2025) 5
veNEAR Holder Rewards Program (HSP-003) discussed, outlining a 90-day incentive initiative with a 280,682 NEAR budget. (October 13, 2025) 6
Cardano went live on NEAR Intents, further expanding cross-chain interoperability. (September 30, 2025) 17
Shade Agents and Aurora Virtual Chains introduced, establishing a framework for autonomous AI agents integrated with blockchain systems via Trusted Execution Environments. (September 9, 2025) 18
Mainnet block production issue postmortem published, detailing a validator-count-triggered crash that dropped block production to approximately 0.1 blocks per second for around 30 minutes before recovery. (July 8, 2025) 19
Nearcore v2.6.1 released, including a mainnet upgrade to protocol version 77, NEP-591 global contracts support, and Optimistic Block to reduce chunk execution latency. (May 1, 2025) 20
Shade Agents introduced, a multichain AI-powered smart contract system using Chain Signatures and Trusted Execution Environments for autonomous, on-chain-verified operation. (February 20, 2025) 21
NEAR Dev launched, an independent entity supporting application developers and partners alongside DevHub. (February 3, 2025) 22