NEAR

NEAR is a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus protocol and decentralized smart-contract platform that uses a sharded architecture to scale transaction throughput. The project implements a block generation scheme called Doomslug and a sharding design named Nightshade. These systems work together to scale the network and reduce congestion. NEAR puts a strong focus on being a developer and user-friendly platform. It offers several essential advances 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.