What NEAR does

NEAR Protocol is a Layer-1 blockchain infrastructure company operating a sharded, quantum-adaptive blockchain that the company positions as the settlement layer for an emerging AI-agent economy. Its core architecture, Nightshade 3.0, decouples consensus from execution, supports dynamic resharding and a private shard for confidential transactions, and targets 1 million TPS with 600ms block times and 1.2-second finality; the mainnet has maintained 100% uptime since its 2020 launch. The protocol is governed by the NEAR Foundation (a Swiss non-profit) and the $NEAR token trades publicly; the company's addressable product surface extends beyond the base chain to NEAR Intents (a universal cross-chain execution protocol integrated by Ledger, Brave Wallet, Coinbase, and others), NEAR AI (private inference and the IronClaw secure agent runtime backed by Intel TDX and NVIDIA GPU TEEs), and near.com (a consumer multichain super-app aggregating 35+ chains). Co-founded by Illia Polosukhin, a co-author of the seminal "Attention Is All You Need" Transformer paper, NEAR explicitly markets its convergence of AI and blockchain infrastructure as a differentiator.

NEAR operates a hybrid product-led and community-led go-to-market: developers self-onboard through the NEAR Developer Hub, write smart contracts in Rust or JavaScript, and earn 30% of burned gas when their contracts execute, while enterprise adoption is pursued through direct partnerships with Tier-1 technology counterparties including Coinbase, NVIDIA, Intel, and the Government of Bermuda. The company monetizes primarily through protocol-level fee capture: the NEAR Intents fee switch directs a share of cross-chain transaction revenue to $NEAR buybacks, and NEAR AI compute/inference is payable in $NEAR by operating agents, creating a usage-driven demand loop. Distribution is augmented by integrations with Ledger, Brave, ThorSwap, HOT Wallet, Infinex, Zodl, Movement, SimpleSwap, and a flagship deployment with Abound (Times of India Group-backed) for cross-border remittance; the House of Stake governance system coordinates protocol upgrades, economic parameters, and treasury decisions onchain.

The company targets four primary segments—AI agent infrastructure, DeFi users seeking chain abstraction, enterprise AI workloads requiring confidential compute, and developers building Web3 applications—and operates with 101–250 employees from San Francisco, with the NEAR Foundation headquartered in Switzerland. Cumulative fundraising totals approximately $500M (a $150M round in January 2022 led by Three Arrows Capital and a $350M round in April 2022 led by Tiger Global at a $10B+ valuation); the protocol has processed approximately 5.36 billion transactions since launch and reached 46 million MAU by May 2025, with NEAR Intents processing $20B+ in cumulative cross-chain volume. The most recent fiscal-year protocol revenue proxy is low single-digit millions (reported at approximately $4,640/day in mid-2026), with valuation having compressed from the 2022 highs to roughly $2.7–$2.9 billion in 2026 before partial recovery.

Name

NEAR

Legal name

NEAR Foundation

Website

https://near.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2020

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

101–250 employees

Short description

NEAR Protocol operates a sharded Layer-1 blockchain (1M+ TPS, 600ms blocks) alongside NEAR Intents (cross-chain execution), NEAR AI (TEE-backed private inference), and near.com (super-app). It targets developers, DeFi users, enterprises, and governments as settlement infrastructure for the emerging AI agent economy.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Layer-1 Blockchain Infrastructure

NAICS

Financial Transactions Processing, Reserve, and Clearinghouse Activities (522320)

SIC

Security & Commodity Brokers, Dealers, Exchanges & Services (6200), Finance Services (6199)

akta.pro primary industry

Layer 1 Base Protocols & Consensus (execution, consensus, security, clients) (FSAPAAAA)

akta.pro secondary industries

Cross-Chain Messaging Protocols (general-purpose message passing) (FSAPAKAA), Cross-Chain Wallet & Asset Routing Infrastructure (FSADACAJ), Protocol Security, Monitoring & Risk Tooling (audits, formal verification, analytics) (FSAPAAAL), Interoperability Monitoring, Analytics & Compliance (bridge risk scoring, forensics, alerts) (FSAPAKAJ)

Keywords

• Layer-1 blockchain
• Smart contract platform
• Cross-chain execution
• Private AI inference
• Blockchain infrastructure

Headquarters

HQ city

San Francisco

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices2 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2B and B2C

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales, Operations

Revenue model

1. Protocol Fees from NEAR Intents: Protocol fees from NEAR Intents flow directly to NEAR Protocol. The Intents fee switch is live with automatic revenue-sharing mechanism with third-party distribution channels. All payouts denominated in $NEAR, creating direct demand for the token.
2. Distribution Fees from NEAR Intents: Distribution fees are shared between NEAR and integration partners (wallets, dApps, financial platforms, agentic systems). This represents a growing revenue lever as NEAR expands its distribution footprint.
3. NEAR AI Services: Compute and inference services payable in $NEAR for AI agents operating on the network. AI agents pay in $NEAR to operate and maintain state, creating recurring usage-driven demand.
4. Protocol Buybacks: Revenue from NEAR products (Intents, AI) is directed to governance-based treasury structure that can deploy assets for buyback and earn strategies, creating deflationary pressure through open-market token purchases. NEAR Intents has already directed over $1M to $NEAR buyback.
5. Fee Burn Mechanism: Developers earn 30% of burned gas every time their contract executes, aligning incentives between developers and network usage. Increased network usage accelerates the deflationary economic flywheel.

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels7 records

Marketing channels9 records

Core offering

NEAR Protocol is a sharded, quantum-adaptive Layer-1 blockchain that combines cross-chain execution through NEAR Intents, confidential settlement via a private shard, hardware-backed private AI inference through NEAR AI, and a secure agent harness (IronClaw). It provides the underlying infrastructure for developers building smart contracts in Rust or JavaScript, enterprises deploying confidential AI workloads, and consumers using the near.com super-app to trade across 35+ chains with no manual gas or bridging.

Product overview

NEAR Protocol is a Layer-1 blockchain platform that operates as a unified commerce layer for assets and agents, combining cross-chain execution, confidential settlement, private inference, and secure agent infrastructure. The platform architecture consists of NEAR Protocol (the foundational sharded blockchain), NEAR Intents (universal cross-chain liquidity protocol), NEAR AI (private inference and secure agent harness), and near.com (consumer super app). Key technological components include Nightshade 3.0 (consensus/execution decoupling with private shard), Dynamic Resharding (automatic scaling), IronClaw (secure AI agent runtime), and the Confidential GPU Marketplace. The ecosystem also includes House of Stake for onchain governance and evolving tokenomics with deflationary mechanisms. The protocol positions itself as infrastructure for the agent economy, targeting autonomous AI agents that transact on-chain at machine speed.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• NEAR Intents: Universal cross-chain liquidity protocol that allows users and agents to express outcomes rather than manage execution paths, routing transactions through an intent-solving network.
• NEAR AI
• NEAR DCML
• near.com
• Nightshade
• House of Stake

Products and services

• NEAR Protocol NEAR Protocol is the foundational Layer-1 blockchain infrastructure, a sharded, quantum-adaptive blockchain that serves as the settlement layer for the agent economy. It supports 1 million TPS scalability with 600ms block times and 1.2 second finality, combining cross-chain execution, confidential settlement, private inference, and a secure agent harness.
• NEAR Intents NEAR Intents is a universal cross-chain liquidity protocol that allows users and agents to express desired outcomes rather than manage execution paths, enabling seamless cross-chain execution with sub-cent fees and sub-second settlement. Integrated by Ledger, Brave Wallet, Infinex, ThorSwap, HOT Wallet, and leading DeFi protocols.
• NEAR AI NEAR AI is a private inference and secure agent harness infrastructure that provides hardware-backed private AI inference via Trusted Execution Environments (Intel TDX and NVIDIA GPU TEEs). It includes IronClaw for sandboxing AI agent tools and isolating credentials inside TEE enclaves so secrets never reach the AI model.
• near.com Consumer Super-App near.com is a consumer-focused crypto super-app that lets users trade across 35+ chains and 150+ assets from a single account without manual gas juggling or bridging. It features Confidential Mode for execution inside a private shard and is powered by NEAR Intents.
• NEAR AI Agent Market The NEAR AI Agent Market is a decentralized marketplace for AI agents to transact with full economic autonomy, integrated with NEAR Intents. It enables agents to discover counterparties and execute cross-chain settlements, supporting over 747 active agents and 2,251 jobs as of March 2026.
• NEAR AI Cloud NEAR AI Cloud is a hardware-backed private inference service providing enterprise-grade confidential AI compute using Intel TDX gateways and NVIDIA GPU TEEs for secure model inference.
• NEAR AI Private Chat NEAR AI Private Chat is a privacy-preserving AI chat interface designed for everyday consumer use, with prompts and responses processed inside hardware-enforced TEE enclaves.
• House of Stake Governance House of Stake is NEAR's stake-based governance system that coordinates protocol upgrades, economic parameters, and treasury decisions through onchain ratification by $NEAR token holders.

Quantifiable outcome

• NEAR Intents has processed over $20 billion in cross-chain volume since Q1 2025, including $70 million in agentic transactions in a 24-hour period.
• +4 more outcomes

Named customers8 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration18 records

AI capability9 records

Feature9 records

Partnerships

Six partnerships are on record, tiered core and flagship.

• CoinbasecoreTechnology or Integration · 11 June 2026Coinbase collaborated with NEAR (alongside AWS, Anthropic, Circle) to develop the x402 open payments protocol for agent-to-service transactions. Coinbase for Agents product uses x402 protocol, enabling AI agents to access user accounts, pull market data, execute trades, and pay for services within user-set limits.
• LedgercoreTechnology or IntegrationLedger Wallet integrated NEAR Intents as a swap provider via SwapKit, bringing cross-chain execution to hardware wallet users. Ledger also partnered with NEAR to align hardware security standards for the quantum era, incorporating NEAR's post-quantum-safe access keys using NIST-approved FIPS-204 signing scheme.
• NVIDIAcoreTechnology or IntegrationNEAR AI joined the NVIDIA Inception program to accelerate enterprise-grade, verifiable AI with confidential GPU compute. NEAR AI uses NVIDIA GPU TEEs alongside Intel TDX gateways for hardware-backed private inference.
• IntelcoreTechnology or IntegrationNEAR AI uses Intel TDX gateways for CPU-level confidential compute, securing inference from edge to cloud alongside NVIDIA GPU TEEs.
• Government of BermudaflagshipStrategic or Co-development PartnerThe Government of Bermuda partnered with NEAR AI to deploy confidential AI for public services, starting with a secure assistant for processing sensitive citizen data. This represents a major government adoption of AI-powered blockchain infrastructure.
• AboundcoreStrategic or Co-development PartnerBacked by the Times of India Group, Abound is deploying IronClaw agents for AI-powered cross-border financial services in India's $135B remittance market.

Scale indicators14 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights7 records

Direct peers

• Solana: High-throughput Layer-1 blockchain competing for the same AI-agent and high-frequency DeFi workloads; Solana also launched AI-focused tooling (e.g., Solana Agent Kit) overlapping with NEAR's positioning.
• Avalanche: Layer-1 with subnets/L1-launchpad model and active push into tokenized RWA and AI applications; comparable sharding-like scaling story and cross-chain messaging ambitions.
• Polygon: Ethereum-aligned Layer-1/Layer-2 ecosystem pursuing cross-chain interoperability and enterprise Web3/AI adoption, with direct competition for institutional and developer mindshare.
• Cosmos (IBC): Cross-chain-first ecosystem where IBC serves as the de facto interoperability protocol; NEAR Intents is a competing cross-chain execution paradigm targeting similar cross-chain liquidity use cases.
• Aptos: Move-based Layer-1 with high throughput and parallel execution; targets similar developer and institutional Web3/AI use cases and participates in cross-chain bridges that compete with NEAR Intents.
• Sui: Move-based Layer-1 from former Meta Diem team pursuing high-throughput retail and DeFi usage; represents competitive L1 capacity and developer attention alongside NEAR.
• LayerZero: Cross-chain messaging and interoperability protocol; competes directly with NEAR Intents by enabling omnichain applications and asset routing across heterogeneous chains.
• Wormhole: Cross-chain bridge and messaging protocol connecting Solana, Ethereum, NEAR and others; functionally overlapping with NEAR Intents for cross-chain asset and message routing.

Emerging players

• Render Network: Decentralized GPU compute network for AI/rendering; comparable to NEAR's Confidential GPU Marketplace in offering distributed AI compute, though focused on rendering/AI inferencing rather than private execution.
• io.net: Decentralized GPU cloud for AI compute; competing in adjacent infrastructure for distributed/confidential AI workloads relevant to NEAR AI's positioning.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat6 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/nearprotocol
• GitHubgithub.com/near
• YouTubeyoutube.com/@NEARProtocol
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/near-protocol-project

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles5 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds9 records

Investors65 records

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments20 records

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about NEAR