NEAR

What is NEAR?

NEAR is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol and a decentralized smart-contract platform which uses a so-called sharded architecture to scale transaction throughput.

The NEAR protocol implements a block generation scheme called Doomslug and a sharding design named Nightshade. These systems work together to scale the network and reduce network congestion.

NEAR puts a strong focus on being a developer and user-friendly platform. It offers several essential innovations to speed up decentralized application (Dapp) development and new user onboarding.

These innovations include human-readable wallet names instead of cryptographic public keys and the ability to interact with smart contracts and applications without needing a wallet.

What is NEAR staking?

Staking is a great way for long-term crypto investors to earn passive income on their Proof-of-Stake cryptocurrency assets (such as NEAR) while taking part in securing the network.

Stakers, by delegating tokens to validators, give voting rights to these to validate transactions on the blockchain and propose new blocks. The more stake is attributed to a validator, the more it will be able to take part in the network consensus and earn rewards for its stakers.

A quick example: Suppose a blockchain network offers a 5% reward rate for a staking period of 1 year (5% APR). You decide to lock up and stake 100 tokens on the network. After a year, you can access your staked tokens, and you receive 5 additional tokens as your reward – minus eventual fees charged by the staking provider.

Staking Proof-of-Stake (PoS) cryptocurrencies such as NEAR does not require stakers to transfer their token to validators. It is a non-custodial process.

Why is Stakin a great choice for NEAR staking?

Staking your assets on your own is operationally challenging as it requires specialist expertise to set up nodes and ensure constant uptime to maximize rewards or prevent so-called slashing: partial loss of your staked cryptocurrencies due to prolonged downtime, or inappropriate/malicious behavior by the node operator.

Stakin is an excellent choice for staking your Near (NEAR) tokens, as we have a strong expertise and track record of reliable operations on this network. Stakin has been a NEAR testnet participant since November 2019, as early as Stake Wars 1.0. We have been an early beta net validator as a result of our positive performance in so-called Stake Wars - we boast +99.5% average all-time uptime. Over 3,000+ wallets are already staking NEAR with Stakin.

There are several advantages when staking your NEAR tokens with Stakin, such as:

• Triple AAA-rated institutional staking provider by Staking Rewards

• ISO 27001-certified staking provider

• Tracking dashboard, to easily track and generate reports for the performance of your staked assets

• Reliable infrastructure - We distribute our servers across various geographical locations and partner with premier bare metal and cloud providers

• Dedicated support for all your staking, unstaking, and network-related questions

• Institutional grade SLAs with uptime and slashing guarantees

What kind of institutional services does Stakin offer for NEAR (NEAR) Staking?

As an institutional-grade NEAR (NEAR) node operator, Stakin has a full range of staking services and advantages to cater to the needs of enterprises and investors, such as asset managers, company treasuries, exchanges, VCs and hedge funds, wallets, custodians, and liquid staking services.

• Institutional grade SLAs with 99.5%+ uptime guarantees and slashing guarantees

• Integration with custodians, such as Fireblocks (via raw signing)

• Dedicated Account Manager to answer all your technical and commercial questions

• Custom integrations and solutions such as custom performance reporting via API or CSV with the possibility to match your backend requirements

• Whitelabel and dedicated nodes with dedicated infrastructure which can be deployed in your preferred region to fit decentralization or compliance needs

• Automated commission and reward management with clear reporting

• 24/7 monitoring and alerting with a private dashboard for dedicated and whitelabel nodes

• Free premium access to Stakin Dashboard which includes staking data visualization across any validator and premium historical data features (on selected networks)