Multi-chain transactions and other important Near Protocol (NEAR) updates
Expanding the Near Protocol ecosystem
According to DeFi Llama, Near Protocol is among the top 30 leading blockchain platforms in terms of the value locked in DeFi protocols (TVL), which exceeds $200 million. This figure is still far from those of Polygon, Base, Arbitrum, and even more from BNB Chain, Solana, and Tron. However, TVL Near Protocol is actively growing. This figure has more than doubled since the beginning of the year, without considering TVL of new liquid-stacking protocols, such as LiNEAR Protocol and Meta Pool Near.
One of the Near Protocol team's top priorities is to attract experienced blockchain game developers to their ecosystem. Top blockchain games such as Hot Game, Kai-Ching, and Sweat Economic have already attracted close to 3 million daily active users. HOT Game alone had nearly 1.7 million as of August 2024.
In 2024, developers Near Protocol integrated their own Here Wallet into the Telegram messenger, bringing many new users to their ecosystem. It was Here Wallet that introduced HOT Game, which is one of the most popular games in the crypto segment. The game was designed to introduce active Telegram users to the Near Protocol ecosystem.
In addition to GameFi, the Near Protocol team has chosen another priority area for developing its ecosystem — artificial intelligence (AI), which has become one of the main trends in the crypto market in 2023-2024. Like GameFi, the Near Protocol team actively engages developers to build AI-based decentralized applications (DApps) for its blockchain.
Near Protocol updates
Over 2023, the Near Protocol team has released 6 critical updates to their protocol:
- Support for meta-transactions, allowing transfers and other transactions on the Near Protocol network even if users' wallets don't have enough NEAR cryptocurrency to pay for gas (a kind of analog to the gas-free transactions that the TON blockchain introduced in 2024);
- Zero-balance accounts. This update allowed users to create empty accounts, as previously, you had to pay for storage and wait for your turn;
- Unified storage, which optimized the handling of on-chain data and thus increased the performance of the Near Protocol blockchain network;
- Cold Storage is a feature that optimizes the performance of network nodes. With this feature, nodes can now separate storage in hot and cold wallets;
- Optimized communication between validators, by which it was possible to reduce latency when sending messages from one node to another;
- Improved state synchronization so that validators and other network participants can synchronize faster with the Near Protocol blockchain and launch their nodes.
In August 2024, the Near Protocol team introduced Chain Signature, or account aggregation. Chain Signature allows Near Protocol to interact with other blockchains and enable multi-chain transactions, i.e., sending one asset across multiple networks. Each transaction can go through any blockchain, and the user can manage their accounts in several networks from a single Near wallet interface.
The Chain Signature feature is implemented in the original NEAR Wallet ecosystem. With it, users can record the entire transaction chain simultaneously instead of completing it in multiple steps.
One of the future updates to Near Protocol will be to improve the availability of data on the blockchain. In November 2023, the Near Protocol team launched NEAR DA, a solution to scale and improve the speed and efficiency of the blockchain network. NEAR DA allows any node to turn its node into a shard and become a full-fledged member of the Near Protocol network, helping to improve network security and speed up transaction processing.
