The brief
- NEAR Protocol is a sharded layer-1 blockchain with human-readable account names, designed for scalability and developer experience.
- NEAR Intents settles cross-chain swaps with MEV resistance, handling $22B+ across 35+ chains.
- In 2026, shipped dynamic resharding for elastic scaling and ML-DSA post-quantum signing. SPICE targets sub-400ms finality.
Technical approach
Sharding
Dynamic sharding for parallel execution
Network splits into parallel execution shards that process independently, scaling throughput without reducing security.
Intents
Cross-chain intent settlement with MEV protection
Users express swaps across blockchains; the system routes and executes with MEV resistance through confidential execution.
Accounts
Human-readable account names
Uses readable names like 'alice.near' instead of hashes, enabling account recovery and delegation.
Security
Post-quantum ML-DSA signing
NIST-approved ML-DSA quantum-resistant signing alongside ED25519, protecting against future quantum attacks.
