What is NEAR?

NEAR is a user-friendly and carbon-neutral blockchain, built from the ground up to be performant, secure, and infinitely scalable.

In technical terms, NEAR is a layer one, sharded, proof-of-stake blockchain built with usability in mind.

In simple terms, NEAR is a blockchain for everyone.

Why Choose NEAR?

​NEAR has been developed with a focus on performance and usability, both for developers and users.

Simple to Use

1. Uses human-readable accounts (e.g. alice.near).

2. Leverages a web-based wallet, no need for users to install programs or browser extensions.

3. Possess a simple yet rich system of Access Keys to handle account permissions.

Fast and Environmentally Friendly

1. Transactions are incredibly fast (~1s transactions) and cheap _(<1¢ in fees).

2. The network is certified carbon-neutral.

3. NEAR consumes in a year the same energy bitcoin consumes in 3 minutes.

Great Developer Experience

1. Enables making smart contracts using Javascript or Rust.

2. Simple onboarding, thanks to its complete documentation and a multitude of examples.

3. NEAR DevRel holds office hours every weekday, where anybody can participate.

4. 30% of gas fees goes to the developers.

5. Project funding available through our Grants Program.

A Technical Marvel

1. Scales infinitely and resists short-term usage spikes thanks to its sharding.

2. Interoperable with Ethereum using Rainbow Bridge (first trustless bridge ever created).

3. EVM compatible with Project Aurora (Deploy your Solidity contracts with ease).

Account Model

In order to join the NEAR ecosystem, users need to create an account. NEAR accounts are unique when compared to other blockchain ecosystems.

Human-Readable Accounts​

NEAR leverages human-readable accounts to simplify remembering them. In this way, accounts have addresses such as alice.near instead of long strings of random characters.

Permissions Through Access Keys​

NEAR accounts can have multiple keys, each with their own set of permissions. This allows to grant specific authorizations to third-parties, while keeping the option to revoke them at any time.

Simple to Develop Smart Contracts​

NEAR accounts can optionally hold a simple program, known as a smart contract. In NEAR, developers can create smart contracts using languages such as Javascript or Rust.

Tracking NEAR