NEAR Voters Back Cut in Token Issuance to 1.6%
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NEAR Protocol’s House of Stake passed HSP-029 on November 2, lowering the network’s maximum annual token issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months, CoinCentral reported. The measure drew support from 99.97% of participating veNEAR, with about 62% of eligible voting power taking part across 32 supporting accounts.
The proposal was submitted by Sal Ternullo, chief executive of SVRN. Its schedule is gradual rather than immediate: the ceiling falls about 0.0375 percentage points each month, with smaller adjustments at every network epoch until the 1.6% target is reached. The split of new tokens is untouched, with 90% going to stakers and 10% to the protocol treasury.
Key facts
- HSP-029 passed on November 2 with 99.97% of participating veNEAR and 32 supporting accounts.
- Maximum annual issuance moves from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months.
- The proposal projects 11.8 million fewer NEAR issued over two years and 66.1 million fewer over six years, or 4.36% less supply than the baseline.
- Modeled daily issuance at the final rate falls from about 89,517 to 57,291 tokens.
- Estimated gross staking yields could drop from 5.27% to 3.37% if the share of staked NEAR holds steady.
Stakers keep the split but earn less
The allocation rule is unchanged, yet the size of the pool feeding it shrinks. For stakers, that means the same proportional claim on a smaller stream of new tokens. The proposal’s own modeling puts the gross yield impact at roughly two percentage points, though the estimate assumes the amount of NEAR staked stays where it is. If staking participation falls as rewards thin, the per-token yield math shifts.
NEAR AI already draws on staking rewards to pay for computing, and more than one million NEAR were staked for AI services in October. That ties part of the network’s staking demand to a product line rather than purely to yield.
Validator economics under review
The proposal flags that 24 of 405 validator pools might struggle to cover running costs from staking rewards alone, based on network data collected in September 2026. It also calls for quarterly reports comparing actual issuance against the planned rate and tracking validator participation, which gives governance a way to check those estimates against results.
The reduction continues a path NEAR set when it lowered maximum issuance from 5% to 2.5% in October 2025. Unlike BNB Chain, which completed another quarterly token burn in October and removes tokens permanently, NEAR is slowing the rate of new supply rather than capping total supply. No fixed supply is set by the proposal.
Why it matters
Supply growth is one of the few tokenomics levers a proof-of-stake network can pull without touching its distribution, and NEAR just chose to slow it while keeping stakers’ share intact. The near-unanimous vote suggests little governance friction, but the real test sits with operators: if smaller pools exit, the validator set could consolidate. Exchanges, wallets and custodians also inherit the work of adjusting to a new emission curve.
What to watch
The House of Stake Security Council must review the approved vote, and validators must adopt the protocol upgrade before any new schedule begins. After ratification, a roughly 90-day transition period is meant to let exchanges, wallets, custodians and staking services prepare, with the first quarterly issuance report serving as the clearest early check on whether the projections hold.
Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment, financial or trading advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Always do your own research.
Source: CoinCentral
