NEAR protocol is a Layer-1 blockchain that aims to incentivize a network of computers through its native token NEAR in order to create a platform for developers to program and launch decentralized applications in a user-friendly environment.&nbsp;NEAR protocol was founded in 2017 by Alex Skidanov, a former director of engineering at memSQL, a database company, and Illia Polosukhin, who previously worked at Google. After almost two years of development, the network launched in April 2020 and become community-operated in September 2020.NEAR protocol’s mission is to create the ideal environment for the development of DApps by providing better security, lower gas fees, faster transactions, and improved interoperability through its concept of sharding and delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism called ‘DoomSlug’. The platform claims that it is more performant, usable, and less expensive than <a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">ETH</a>.&nbsp;<h2>NEAR price</h2>According to our NEAR/USD live price chart, NEAR’s first local peak came in early 2021, when NEAR price went from under $1 on Dec. 15, 2020, to over $7.5 in March. 13, 2021, marking a gain of more than 780%. However, in the coming months, the price of NEAR saw a downward trend and lost most of its gains as the crypto market crashed as a whole in May 2021.In autumn 2021, the crypto market saw the bullish trend returning as major cryptocurrencies like <a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc">BTC</a> and <a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth">ETH</a> rallied, registering significant gains and setting new records. This bull run saw NEAR protocol set an all-time high, going from $2 in Aug 2021 to around $12 on Sep. 9, 2021, an increase of 370%+. However, the token hit a minor rough patch during the coming days as it traded below $8 but quickly managed to pick up from where it fell.&nbsp;NEAR protocol's price saw another strong rally in the coming days, setting a new all-time high of nearly $18 on Dec. 15, after <a href="https://coin360.com/coin/terra-luna">Terra</a> announced that it would issue its UST stablecoins — pegged 1:1 with the U.S dollar on the NEAR network.Q1 2022 also saw positive developments for NEAR price, especially in January 2022, when NEAR set another all-time high at over $20.<h2>How NEAR works</h2>NEAR protocol was conceptualized as a community-run cloud computing platform capable of smart contract development. It was built by the NEAR collective to host decentralized applications and compete with Ethereum. Its native token NEAR can be used to pay for transaction fees, and storage, while also allowing users to stake tokens to participate in network consensus as transaction validators.&nbsp;NEAR operates similarly to Amazon Web Services (AWS) — a centralized data storage system on which applications are built. However, instead of being run and operated by a single institution, NEAR is maintained by a network of distributed computers.&nbsp;Built on the delegated proof-of-stake (DPoS) consensus mechanism, NEAR lets users who don't have the coins or computer parts to setup up their own validator nodes to delegate (stake or lend) their coins to others. Their proof-of-stake protocol is called DoomSlug, and it allows achieving block finality after just 1 round of communication, unlike ETH which takes roughly 35 blocks.To achieve high throughput, speed, and scalability, NEAR uses its own sharding mechanism called Nightshade which processes 100,000 transactions per second (TPS). Sharding splits the platform's data into smaller fragments (shards) which are stored by participating nodes on the blockchain and the main blockchain has snapshots of all of these shards. With each node only responsible for its own code on the blockchain, nodes can conduct computation in parallel with each other, increasing network scalability as the number of nodes increases.Besides the obvious lower gas fees and faster transactions, NEAR boasts another competitive edge over Ethereum — Aurora. Aurora is a Layer-2 scaling solution built using the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) which enables developers to link and deploy ETH smart contracts and decentralized applications on the NEAR network smoothly.<h2>NEAR news, updates, and highlights</h2>In May 2020, during a fundraiser round led by Andreessen Horowitz, NEAR protocol raised $21.6 million. Celebrating the early launch of the <a href="https://near.org/blog/near-mainnet-genesis/">NEAR protocol’s MainNet Genesis</a>, the fundraiser was attended by Pantera Capital, Distributed Global, Blockchange, and many more. The new funds were to be used to give over the network’s governance to the community while handing over tokens to incentivize developers and investors around the world.The launch of Aurora was <a href="https://twitter.com/NEARProtocol/status/1392450743051845634">announced</a> by NEAR via Twitter on May. 12, 2021. As mentioned earlier, Aurora allows Ethereum-based smart contracts to be deployed on NEAR to benefit from extremely low gas fees and faster transaction times of the NEAR protocol.NEAR protocol raised another $350 million in April. 6 2022, in funding led by hedge fund Tiger Global. The bid was put into motion to accelerate the decentralization of the NEAR ecosystem. Crypto investors present in this funding were Republic Capital, FTX Ventures, and Dragonfly Capital among others. This was NEAR’s second nine-figure raise in 2022.<h2>Frequently asked questions about NEAR</h2><ul><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">Can you mine or stake NEAR?</li></ul>NEAR is a proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain, which means it cannot be mined. However, you can stake your NEAR tokens to vote on network governance, and network security or become a validator node to earn staking rewards.<ul><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">What are some of the best NEAR wallets?</li></ul>NEAR offers its own in-house <a href="https://near.org/blog/getting-started-with-the-near-wallet/">software wallet</a> which can be used for staking to earn rewards up to 5% per year. If you are looking for more software wallet options then Trust Wallet and Guarda are worth looking at. Among hardware wallets, Ledger Nano S, and Ledger Nano S Plus will work just fine.<ul><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">What can you do with NEAR?</li></ul>Users can use NEAR tokens to pay for transaction fees on the NEAR protocol network or stake them to become validators and earn rewards. NEAR tokens can also be traded for ETH tokens.<ul><li dir="ltr" aria-level="1">How to buy NEAR?</li></ul>NEAR can be bought by exchanging your <a href="https://coin360.com/coin/bitcoin-btc" style="">BTC</a>, <a href="https://coin360.com/coin/ethereum-eth" style="">ETH</a>, and <a href="https://coin360.com/coin/tether-usdt" style="">USDT</a> through exchanges like HitBTC or by using fiat currency on exchanges like MEXC Global.

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