NEAR token is one of the crypto assets that had a surge in recent weeks. The token associated with NEAR protocol surged as much as 20% in the past week.

Although BTC, ETH, & USDT are the top crypto assets today, other altcoins like NEAR are also gathering pace. The rise in altcoins relative to Bitcoin could reflect a greater appetite for risk among crypto investors.

The volatility in the price of crypto assets makes diversification of portfolios an option for crypto traders. Several altcoins are therefore used to make a profit via the investment by averse risk-takers.

In this post, we’ll check out why NEAR could be a token to be considered by crypto investors. Before then, let’s know more about the NEAR protocol.

What is NEAR Protocol?

NEAR Protocol is a layer 1 blockchain that was designed as a community-run cloud computing platform. It is built to eliminate some of the limitations that have been bogging competing blockchains, such as low transaction speeds, low throughput and poor interoperability.

NEAR Protocol was founded by Erik Trautman, an entrepreneur with experience on Wall Street and founder of Viking Education. NEAR Protocol launched its mainnet on April 22, 2020 with 1 billion NEAR tokens created at genesis.

NEAR uses a variation of the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism called Doomslug. This is based on two rounds of consensus, where a block is considered finalized as soon as it has received the first communication round. This allows for near-instant finality by having validators take turns producing blocks rather than competing directly based on their stake.

NEAR Protocol is being built by the community that is updating the initial code and releasing updates to the ecosystem. Its aim is to “secure enough to manage high value assets like money or identity and performant enough to make them useful for everyday people.”

NEAR token

NEAR Token’s Worth in the Crypto Market

The token associated with the Near Protocol trades by the symbol NEAR. It is listed among thousands of crypto assets by CoinMarketCap.

As at the time of writing, NEAR is ranked 23rd by CoinMarketCap with a live market cap of over $7.5 billion. It has a trading volume of $691, 356, 011 USD.

The token has a circulating supply of 631, 625, 551 NEAR coins. It has a maximum supply of 1, 000, 000, 000 NEAR coins.

NEAR’s 1 billion token supply is distributed as follows- 17.2% – Community Grants, 11.4% – Operation Grants, 10% – Foundation Endowment, 11.7% – Early Ecosystem, 14% – Core Contributors, 17.6% – Backers, 6.1% – Small Backers and 12% – Community Sale.

5% of additional supply is issued each year to support the network as epoch rewards, of which 90% goes to validators (4.5% total) and 10% to the protocol treasury (0.5% total). 30% of transaction fees are paid out as rebates to contracts that interact with a transaction, while the remaining 70% are burned.

What Makes NEAR Different From other Crypto Assets

NEAR uses its Nightshade technology to improve transaction throughput massively. This helps to produce a fraction of the next block called ”chunks”.

In doing so, NEAR Protocol is able to achieve up to 100,000 transactions per second and achieve near-instant transaction finality. The transaction fees on the platform is virtually zero.

NEAR Protocol also improves upon the convoluted onboarding process of other blockchains. They do this by having human-readable addresses and building decentralized applications. This is a similar registration flow to what users have already experienced.

Moreover, it provides developers with modular components, helping them start projects like token contracts or NFTs more quickly.

Why Crypto Investors Should Consider NEAR

The NEAR coins can serve many purposes which makes it a good option for its holders. Here are the uses of the token listed below-

1. It is used as fees for processing transactions and storing data

2. It serves as running validator nodes on the network via staking NEAR token.

3. It is used for governance votes to determine how network resources are allocated.

4. The protocol has built a bridge to Ethereum, this allow users to transfer ERC-20 tokens from the ETH blockchain to NEAR.

Is Near a Good Investment

NEAR is a promising network with the capacity to host other applications. For investors looking to diversify into layer 1 networks, NEAR may be a great investment.

If you’re looking to make high returns in a short period, NEAR, however may not be the best investment for you.

NEAR Competition in the Crypto Industry

The NEAR network hosts the creation of other DApps. This makes the project a direct competitor with other layer 1 platforms like Ethereum, Solana & Avalanche.

These networks are more credible in the crypto community and this gives them an upper hand when it comes to a potential return on investment. However, other investors feel there is room for more layer 1 networks within the couple space.

Where To Buy NEAR Token

NEAR is available on some of the leading exchanges in the world. You can purchase the NEAR Protocol on Binance, FTX, Huobi Global, and so on.

In Conclusion

Investment in crypto assets are no doubt the highest form of risky investments you can dabble into. This is because of the volatility in price of the assets which may not guarantee returns on investment. The knowledge of the coin to invest in is also important in this form of investment.

If you’ll need to consider NEAR token for your investment, you have to study the market before putting your money. If you are putting money into it, you have to put what you can afford to lose.

Also Read– Top 7 Things To Know About Polygon (MATIC) Token

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