Thread by @Crypto8Fi

Let's talk about Near Protocol. #NEAR

A fully decentralized application platform that has the potential to change how the web itself works.

Let's look at the tech, tokenomics and development to help you understand better.

THREAD

In this mega thread we will be looking at:

-What is #NearProtocol?
-The underlying technology
-The aims
-Value Capture of the token
-Tokenomics
-Team
-Achievements thus far

/1

What is $Near Protocol?

It is a fully decentralized application platform designed to make apps similarly usable to those on today’s web.

The network runs on a Proof-of-Stake aiming to provide scalability and low fees

/2

Near is unique as it overcomes challenges of other blockchains in relation to interoperability.

This is because it is:

-Developer Friendly
-User Friendly
-A Uniquely Designed Protocol

Interested anon, keep reading...

/3

Developer Friendliness:

-They allow developers to write, test and deploy applications in a faster, simpler and more user friendly manner.

User Friendly:

-Smart Contract based account model eg crypto.near.
-It also contains uniquely permissioned keys (eg if the address...

/4

Doesn't exist, the transaction won't be processed and the tokens won't be lost).

Protocol Design:

-Nightshade (sharding)
-Doomslug (consensus)
-First mover advantage in implementing both state and transaction sharding

/5

Let's define these terms.

Nightshade is the mechanism of dynamic sharding (more on sharding later).

Doomslug means the algorithm will never stall, even if the network is delayed, due to creation of the block happening inevitably.

Let's talk about the aims of #NEAR

/6

Firstly let's briefly discuss Web3.

Web 3.0 is a decentralized protocol-based framework where value lies in protocol layers.

There is a major problem trusting centralized corporations with data on the internet.

In Web 3.0, the protocol layer is P2P. Users are consumers.

/7

The aims are derived from the problem Near is trying to solve.

The scalability trilemma proposed by Vitalik Buterin is this problem.

NEAR is based on a PoS-style mechanism; Thresholded Proof of Stake (TPoS)

Near therefore aims to solve this by...

/8

Prioritising usability and user friendliness.

It is built to be adopted by existing Web 2.0 developers as well as existing Internet protocols.

It is designed for adoption so that it can scale effectively, with low fees for users and developers.

/9

Technology.

Let's discuss this in relation to Sharding and Security.

Sharding:

The NEAR network is designed to scale a single chain by consecutively adding shards in proportion to the current usage requirements (nightshade).

What are the problems with sharding?

/10

A problem with sharding is as the number of shards is increased, the security of each shard decreases.

How does #Near solve this?

Nightshade.

-Allows sharding to operate in parallel to achieve higher throughput and limitless growth

Continued..

/11

-Validators process transactions exclusively for their own shard.
-Nightshade thus allows for horizontal scalability.

Let's talk about security.

With PoS, a major problem is that of collusion for economic benefit at the harm of the system..

/12

This is evidenced in previous DAO hacks on the principles of re entrancy (execution was interrupted while in progress).

NEAR Protocol prevents re-entrancy attacks such as the DAO hack:

-All cross contract calls can be processed only after smart contract initiater says so.

/13

Let's briefly discuss development.

There is significant amount of Github and developer activity with $Near.

NEAR has built the ETH-NEAR Rainbow Bridge so that users, developers, and protocols have accessibility to a huge inventory of dApps and liquidity on Ethereum chain.

/14

This will allow for the leverage of NEAR’s ease of development, faster transaction speed, and low, stable fees

Projects can thus be migrated to NEAR seamlessly.

Let's talk more about future development which is important for us as investors...

/15

Near is built for future growth in mind.

Demand for tokens and use accompanies ecosystem growth.
Deployment of dApps, protocols and platforms cause treasury rewards to accumulate over time.

This allows for more projects to be funded.

A constant cycle of growth.

/16

How about barriers to development?

Interoperability chains like Cosmos have this barrier.

NEAR has built a solution that is fully integrated, meaning a traditional Javascript developer or any popular language can utilize NEAR’s IDE to deploy with ease.

/17

Moving on to the value capture of the token:

-NEAR is the native utility token of the network and has the following utility:
-Fees for processing transactions and storing data.
-To run a validator node on the network via staking NEAR tokens.

More...

/18

Used for governance votes to determine how network resources are allocated and where the protocol’s future technical direction will go.

But what about inflation?

It is necessary to pay validators. There is fixed issuance around 5% of the total supply each year...

/19

90% of which goes to validators in exchange for computing, storage, and securing the transactions happening on the network.

However this is where it gets rather interesting.

There are deflation mechanisms in place to counter contract rewards inflation.

/20

The protocol burns transaction fees at the end of each block.
Rewards increase the total supply and fee burn reduces it.

The NEAR ecosystem is designed to be inflationary in nature as it scales, with gradual deflation with network usage and partial transaction fee burns.

/21

To summarise the 4 main use cases are:

Network Fees
Fungibility
Security
Unit of Account

Let's talk about the team now...

/22

NEAR’s core team consists of 51 members.

The co-founders are Illia Polosukhin, an ex-Google employee with almost 10 years years of experience in machine learning and AI, and Alexander Skidanov, an ex-Microsoft employee with almost 7 years in the engineering industry

/23

What about backing?

They have had significant funding.

Over $33 million dollars from funding rounds.

Public token sale was $30 million dollars was raised [August 2020].

/24

Some of the projects building on NEAR:

-ZED
-Flux
-Mintbase

For example, Flux.
Using NEAR’s native Rust programming language, they were able to build a fast, inexpensive, and decentralized open market protocol.

/25

Roadmap?

So thus far...

NEAR Protocol launched its mainnet on April 22, 2020 with 1 billion NEAR tokens created.

5% of additional supply is issued yearly to support the network of which 90% goes to validators (4.5% total) and 10% to the protocol treasury (0.5% total).

/26

An upcoming interest.

NEAR #MetaBUILD2, which runs December 22nd to February 10th, 2022 is a hackathon and app build competition.

This gives everyone an incentive to help build on and expand the NEAR ecosystem, the Open Web, and Metaverse.

A larger ecosystem.

/27

Moving onto price metrics:

NEAR Protocol Price: $15.18
Market Cap: $9,144,793,737.24
Fully Diluted Market Cap: $15,241,654,147.36
Market Rank: 24

/28

$Near in summary,

Has strong fundamentals and is well placed within the Top 100 by Market Cap.

I personally do not have a position in Near however will look to accumulate heavily on dips.

I believe that there is growth around the corner for @NEARProtocol .

/29

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