NEAR Plans to Cut Token Issuance From 2.5% to 1.6%

NEAR Protocol is considering a new governance proposal that would gradually reduce its maximum annual token issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months. The plan would lower the number of new NEAR tokens entering circulation while keeping the existing 90/10 split between stakers and the treasury unchanged.

The proposal also introduces a longer-term idea: eventually ending new issuance and moving NEAR toward a fixed total supply. However, that fixed-supply goal is not part of the proposal being prepared for the next vote. It is being presented as a direction for further research and future governance decisions.

NEAR could cut issuance by 36%

Under the proposal, NEAR's maximum annual issuance would fall gradually from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months, with the reduction happening each epoch rather than through a single overnight change.

At the current 2.5% rate, the proposal estimates that roughly 89,500 new NEAR tokens are created each day. Over six years, the proposed reduction would avoid about 66 million NEAR from being newly issued, according to the discussion.

The proposal argues that the network's circumstances have changed since the higher issuance rate was established. NEAR now has an oversubscribed validator set, while NEAR Intents is generating protocol revenue and that revenue is already being used to buy NEAR on the open market.

That revenue has become an increasingly important part of NEAR's token economics. NEAR's revenue dashboard shows protocol fees being captured from Intents activity, with a portion flowing into NEAR buybacks.

Stakers would earn less

The lower issuance would also reduce the rewards paid to NEAR stakers.

The governance discussion estimates that staking yield could fall from roughly 5.4% currently to around 3.5% once the 1.6% issuance target is reached. For someone staking 1,000 NEAR, the proposal estimates about 21 fewer NEAR earned over two years compared with keeping issuance at 2.5%.

That creates a trade-off. Stakers would receive fewer newly issued tokens, while holders who do not stake would face less dilution.

The proposal says 58.7% of NEAR is currently not staked. Those tokens do not receive staking rewards but are still affected by the additional supply created through issuance.

NEAR already cut issuance once

This would not be NEAR's first major reduction in token issuance.

In October 2025, NEAR reduced its maximum annual inflation rate from 5% to 2.5%. The upgrade required adoption by validators representing at least 80% of block-producing stake.

The new proposal points to the results of that earlier reduction as evidence that lower issuance does not necessarily mean a weaker validator network.

At the time of the 2025 cut, NEAR had 342 active validators. According to the latest governance discussion, that number subsequently increased to 382 within three months, reached 439 in April, and currently stands at 413.

That history is important because validator incentives are one of the main questions surrounding another issuance reduction.

Intents change the tokenomics equation

The proposal comes as NEAR Intents has become a larger source of economic activity for the network.

NEAR says Intents has processed more than $30 billion in cumulative volume across 35 chains. The protocol's revenue system captures part of the fees generated by this activity and uses NEAR buybacks as one mechanism for value capture.

That growth has also been visible in NEAR's recent market activity. Altcoin Buzz recently reported a 78% weekly gain in NEAR as cumulative Intents volume approached $29.3 billion.

Related: NEAR gains 78% in a week as Intents cumulative volume tops $29B

The new governance discussion takes that growing revenue base into account. Its argument is that if the network can increasingly fund economic activity through revenue, it may not need to rely as heavily on newly created tokens to compensate the network's security providers.

A bigger change could come later

The most significant part of the discussion may be the long-term proposal to eventually stop issuing new NEAR altogether.

The author of the proposal, Sal Ternullo, CEO of SVRN, describes the fixed-supply idea as an eventual destination for NEAR's monetary policy. Under that model, the network would rely increasingly on revenue generated by its products rather than permanent token issuance to pay for network security.

But this is not a vote to make NEAR's supply fixed.

The current proposal only covers the reduction from 2.5% to 1.6%. Any future move toward zero issuance or a fixed supply would require additional research, a separate proposal and another governance process.

What happens next?

The 1.6% plan is expected to go through a House of Stake vote next week. Even if the vote passes, validators would still need to adopt the change through the standard network upgrade process.

The proposal also suggests a 90-day grace period before the first reduction. This would give wallets, exchanges and staking providers time to update their systems and adjust to the new issuance schedule.

For NEAR, the debate is therefore moving beyond simply asking how much inflation the network should have. The bigger question is whether growing protocol revenue can gradually replace newly issued tokens as the main way of funding network security.