NEAR is turning up the «money printer» even more 🖨️
Imagine that the NEAR blockchain has its own machine that prints new NEAR coins. They go to those who secure the network: stakers and validators. The more that gets printed, the greater the «dilution»: your share of the overall pie gets a little smaller.
NEAR has decided to slow down the printing press. The community voted to lower the issuance limit from 2.5% to 1.6% per year. This is the second time: the limit used to be 5%.
What does this mean in numbers:
The network currently mints around 89,500 per day, but eventually it will mint around 57,300.
Over two years, 11.8 million fewer coins are expected to be issued than under the old limit.
The distribution remains unchanged: 90% of new coins go to stakers, and 10% go to the treasury.
Who benefits, and who doesn’t?
😊 Coin holders. There will be fewer new tokens, meaning less dilution.
😬 Stakers. Yields will fall from around 5.27% to 3.37% annually.
😰 Smaller validators. Once the change is implemented, operators without net NEAR holdings will lose around 36% of their commission revenue.
When will this happen? Not right away. First, there must be a review and a 90-day grace period, followed by a network upgrade. After that, the limit will gradually decrease by 3.75 basis points per period, reaching 1.6% by month 24. Every quarter, NEAR will publish reports so everyone can check whether the schedule is being followed.
Bottom line: limiting issuance makes the coin scarcer, but forces stakers and validators to tighten their belts. The market reacted nervously: according to TokenInsight, NEAR fell 11% in 24 hours following the news. This is not investment advice, just the facts 🙂
