https://blog.donnyguo.com/en/tags/tokenomics/Recent content in Tokenomics on Donny's BlogHugoen-USSat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0400https://blog.donnyguo.com/en/blog/intro-near-protocol/Sat, 17 Oct 2026 00:00:00 -0400https://blog.donnyguo.com/en/blog/intro-near-protocol/<blockquote> <p>Research cutoff: October 15, 2026. Market figures and protocol-status descriptions reflect the dates cited below.</p> </blockquote> <h2 id="1-project-overview-and-the-problem-it-addresses">1. Project Overview and the Problem It Addresses </h2> <p>NEAR is a general-purpose proof-of-stake layer-1 blockchain whose native token is NEAR. The two co-founders, Illia Polosukhin and Alexander Skidanov, both came out of AI research. They were frustrated by the fact that payments using the existing blockchain infrastructure were unusable, so they decided to build a scalable blockchain. <sup id="fnref:1"><a href="#fn:1" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">1</a></sup> Mainnet was launched in 2020, and the ecosystem now involves the NEAR Foundation, Near One, independent validators, and a growing developer community. <sup id="fnref:2"><a href="#fn:2" class="footnote-ref" role="doc-noteref">2</a></sup> From the history of NEAR Protocol, it is interesting to see that it started with a straightforward goal — cheap, fast smart-contract execution — and has since broadened its narrative toward chain abstraction and “User-Owned AI”.</p>