NEAR Issuance Cut to 1.6% Passes Vote, Staking Yield Set to Fall

NEAR Protocol's governance has backed a plan to cut the token's maximum annual issuance from 2.5% to 1.6%. If it clears the last steps, you will see fewer new NEAR minted every day, and stakers will earn less.

The proposal, HSP-029, now shows the status "Veto Window" on the House of Stake governance portal. That means the vote has passed and the proposal is in its veto period. It was submitted on 19 October 2026 by the account svrnaiemissions.near.

How the 1.6% Ramp Works

The cut does not happen in one go. The proposal lowers the ceiling on a smooth 24-month ramp, worked out per epoch, of roughly 3.75 basis points (0.0375%) a month.

The split of new tokens stays the same: 90% to stakers and 10% to the treasury.

In daily terms, NEAR issues about 89,517 new tokens a day at 2.5%. At the 1.6% target, that falls to about 57,291. That is roughly 32,226 fewer NEAR entering circulation every day once the ramp is complete.

The proposal's modelling says the change avoids 11.8 million NEAR of issuance over two years and 66.1 million over six years. That leaves supply 4.36% smaller than it would be under the current rate.

What Changes for Stakers and Non-Stakers

If you stake NEAR, the headline number is yield. The proposal's own table puts gross staking yield, the return before validator fees, at 5.268% at today's 2.5% rate and 3.372% at the 1.6% target. That is a drop of about 36% in what stakers earn.

If you do not stake, the proposal argues you come out ahead straight away. Its authors say every non-staking holder, currently 57.3% of supply, "is better off immediately and with no offset at all", because less new supply dilutes their share.

The network figures in the proposal, dated 22 September 2026, show:

• Total supply: 1,306,946,399 NEAR
• Total staked: 558,165,227 NEAR, or 42.71% of supply

The Cost for Smaller Validators

Lower rewards hit validator income too. The proposal says 24 of 405 staking pools lose economic self-sufficiency at spot at the target rate. Put simply, those pools would no longer cover their costs from rewards at current prices.

That is about 6% of pools. The proposal does not treat it as a blocker, but it is the clearest trade-off in the plan.

Why NEAR Is Doing This Now

HSP-029 follows a different path for NEAR's economics. On 20 August, co-founder Illia Polosukhin withdrew the Sovereign Fund proposal. The new plan was authored by SVRN.

The authors also point to Solana. They say Solana ratified an equivalent change on 28 August 2026, SGP-0002, with 67.001% of stake in favour.

Nothing Changes Until Validators Upgrade

Passing the vote is not the same as a live cut. Three steps still stand between HSP-029 and your staking rewards:

1. The proposal has to get through its veto window and be ratified.
2. A grace period of 90 days, one full quarter, then runs before the first basis point comes off. The proposal says this gives wallets, exchanges, custodians and staking providers time to update their disclosures.
3. Validators have to adopt the upgrade, because the ramp is a protocol parameter change.

After that, the plan calls for quarterly transparency reports, with the 1.6% rate in force at month 24. For stakers, that means current yields hold for at least another quarter after ratification, and then step down month by month.