NEAR Was Proposed Changing Tokenomics

Published: October 2, 2026 – 07:42 UTC

The NEAR community is discussing a new tokenomics model for the protocol.
The proposal calls for reducing annual issuance to 1.6% over two years.
In the longer term, the initiative’s author proposes fully ending NEAR issuance and moving to a fixed token supply.

SVRN CEO Sal Ternullo has proposed that the NEAR community cut the token’s maximum annual issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months and, in the long run, fully отказаться from new issuance and move to a fixed supply.

New proposal on the NEAR Governance Forum from @sal_ternullo CEO at @svrn_ai on cutting issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months, plus a longer-term direction toward a fixed total supply.

The floor is open to validators, House of Stake delegates, and the whole NEAR community.…
— NEAR Protocol (@NEARProtocol) October 1, 2026

The discussion was published on the NEAR governance forum on September 30, 2026. The first proposal is set to be put to a vote next week. The initiative aims to reduce dilution for NEAR holders and change the network security funding model.

NEAR Wants to Gradually Reduce Issuance

Under the plan, NEAR’s maximum annual issuance would be lowered from 2.5% to 1.6% gradually, every epoch over 24 months. The issuance split between stakers and the treasury — 90/10 — would remain unchanged.

The proposal’s author notes that the network no longer needs high issuance to bootstrap the ecosystem. By his estimate, the current 2.5% adds about 89,500 NEAR to supply each day, while 58.7% of tokens are not staked and therefore get diluted without earning staking yield.

Over six years, the gradual reduction in issuance, according to the author’s calculations, would avoid the issuance of about 66 million NEAR. At the current price, that is equivalent to roughly $329 million.

At the same time, lower issuance would reduce staking returns: from about 5.4% now to 3.5% after reaching the target. For a holder staking 1,000 NEAR, this would mean about 21 NEAR less in rewards over two years compared with keeping issuance at 2.5%.

The author also points to a previous issuance cut. In October 2025, NEAR reduced it from 5% to 2.5%. At the time, the number of active validators rose from 342 to 382 over the next three months, reached 439 in April, and stands at 413 as of the proposal’s publication.

After the House of Stake vote, the changes must be separately adopted by validators through the standard network upgrade process. A 90-day transition period is also proposed to update wallets, exchanges, and staking services.

NEAR Discusses a Complete Phaseout of Issuance

The second part of the initiative is not yet being put to a vote. Ternullo described it as a long-term direction — to fully end issuance and set a fixed total supply of NEAR.

“I believe NEAR’s issuance should eventually end, with a fixed total supply,” he wrote.

In his view, once issuance ends, the network should cover its security and development needs from its own revenues. Currently, issuance provides stakers with about $146 million per year, while the infrastructure required to run the network, by his estimate, costs significantly less.

At the same time, Ternullo acknowledged that moving to a fixed supply requires separate research. In particular, it is necessary to determine a mechanism for funding security, decentralization, and ecosystem development without ongoing issuance.

In the discussion, some participants supported a reduction to 1.6% but voiced reservations about a complete phaseout of issuance. In response, Ternullo noted that there is currently no “time-tested successful example” of a blockchain that has fully transitioned to such a model.

Ternullo also emphasized that this is why a fixed supply is currently a direction for research, not a ready-to-implement proposal. According to him, the decision on the second phase should be based on data obtained after a gradual reduction in issuance over 24 months.

Separately, he disclosed a potential conflict of interest: SVRN holds more than 55 million NEAR, mostly staked. By his estimate, the first part of the proposal would reduce the company’s income by roughly 970,000 NEAR per year.

As a reminder, NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin recently announced a plan for a fixed token supply and proposed creating a sovereign protocol fund.

Сообщение NEAR Was Proposed Changing Tokenomics появились сначала на INCRYPTED.

Source: Incrypted