By Larry Wright
There are a bunch of blockchain systems out there; each and every one is unique in its own doing and tackles the very issues of decentralization that are scalability, customizability, and interoperability. You would find a myriad of options available out there, and you can certainly take your pick, but it is definitely going to induce massive labor and head-scratching on your part before you will find the most subtle blockchain system for your business or enterprise needs.
A new blockchain system by the name of the NEAR Protocol was launched in 2020, and it consists of a state-of-the-art blockchain system Nightshade; this is a unique piece of sharding technology that is there to help through the atrocious and hard aspects of scalability. The very purpose of the NEAR Protocol in the very beginning was to be able to host decentralized apps on the platform while integrating the whole thing into a cloud-based infrastructure to promote scalability and accessibility.
Cross-chain interoperability is also something that NEAR Protocol offers to decrease delays with the help of Rainbow Bridge which is an incredible solution controlled by Aurora (a NEAR Protocol entity). This protocol helps in the bridging of ERC-20 tokens directly from the Ether blockchain. This helps the network to achieve higher throughput while cutting down transaction fees significantly. NEAR is also the native token for the NEAR Protocol and can be used for the sake of paying storage fees as well as for the transactions that take place over the network.
Another elegant use case of the NEAR Protocol is its extensive adoption by users, as on to the NEAR wallet, they would be able to receive certain rewards and crypto within their wallet if they choose to stake their crypto.
A Brief Introduction to NEAR Protocol
With the ever-increasing adaptability of decentralization and cryptocurrencies, the demand for a more swift and fierce infrastructure continues to spur. After successfully setting up their decentralized network, these cryptocurrencies started to tackle these scalability issues that they were facing upfront because of the increased demand. Ether, above every other cryptocurrency out there, faces the most intricate challenges when it comes to scalability and accommodating a wide variety of users because of its feasibility for non-fungible tokens and smart contracts.
That is the reason why Ether is often packed with so many users, and it fails to facilitate all of them; at instances, some of the times you might have witnessed a sudden increase in the prices of gas for Ether transactions and, therefore, an increase in the transaction cost as well.
This is nothing but discouraging and putting people at an off chance to adopt decentralization because what should they do about this increased traffic over a particular blockchain entity? They want their transactions to be validated now, not after a few weeks have passed. That is where NEAR Protocol shines the brightest as it tackles the issues of scalability and customizability pretty neatly.
The NEAR Protocol was issued as a layer one blockchain system that incorporates the use of sharding technology to be able to perceive any threats that emerge on the horizon with respect to the scalability and put all of them to sleep. NEAR is employing the use of smart contracts and purposefully adopts a proof of stake consensus algorithm for the sake of securing its network and optimizing the complete automation from building, launch, execution, and the final fulfilment of a blocking media. The project works as a community-operated infrastructure that is primarily used for the hosting of decentralized applications and other intended media in that specific category.
There are multiple domains of programming tools and languages that are available within the platform; this is done purposefully by the developers to provide the users and people who want enterprise-level solutions with scalability. This will induce interoperability and cross-functionality among various disciplines, platforms, and blockchain environments.
The wallet addresses used by NEAR Protocol are also readable by human beings, and these are not merely numbers and annotations, which is something that has been done beautifully. Crypto space was in grave need of a human touch rather than automating each and everything to make it seem a bit more robotic. The NEAR Protocol is also aware of the increased effects of decentralization and blockchain technology on our climate, which is why it is inducing carbon-neutral practices not only in the automation and customization but also in the development of blockchain systems by the users as well.
Working Mechanism of NEAR Protocol
There are multiple blockchain systems out there, such as polka dot, Ether, XRP, and even Bitcoin, and these are the direct competitors of the NEAR Protocol, which is why this specific protocol takes them as a grave challenge that needs to be sorted right away. Several features have been introduced by NEAR Protocol to tackle the issues of scalability, and performance as well as boost the overall working of the blockchain media that is NEAR Protocol.
What is Nightshade Sharding?
The nightshade is the primary technology developed by the NEAR blockchain system; it is actually a sharding technology that enables the blockchain to not only parse through multiple streams of data but also to process it much more efficiently. This leads to added insights drawn from the data, which could be used for the sake of making calculable and perforated decisions in the aftermath of a serious market-wide crash or deploying a blockchain solution, whereas the primary one failed to address the needs of the enterprise.
Sharding actually points towards the splitting of work when it comes to processing transactions and sharing that work around multiple nodes so that the free nodes are also accompanied by the working nodes to enhance the efficiency of the network and to be able to complete and validate many other transactions in real-time. This readily increases the transactions per second speed of the network, which leads to fewer errors, and more work done around the block, whereas keeping the transaction fees to their bare minimum. Multiple nodes are engaged in validating multiple paths of a single transaction.
Instead of a single node taking care of a single transaction, the work is distributed much like an assembly line in a factory area where each and every node takes part in performing a specific job; once that job has been completed, the transaction data is to be passed to a next node or all of them could work in a parallel fashion contemplating the completion of various sites of the transaction thus leading to much quicker and ambient response time. It has not been confirmed in a practical sense yet, but according to the developers of the new protocol in the nightshade technology, the network is capable of performing millions of transactions per second without hinging on any possible errors or downfalls in any potential way.
In theory, it means that the network is capable of performing all those transactions without affecting the performance of the network even by a single percent. The sharding or splitting of the transaction data takes place as per the capacity of the network to handle those transactions and the overall traffic that the network is experiencing at any given moment.
When the traffic increases, the sharding activity will also get increased; the network would then allow various nodes that were inactive before to become active and take part in the process of validating the transactions. Luckily you don’t have to wait hours or days, or even weeks on end to get your transactions validated because this is something that the new protocol has taken care of right to the very dot.
What is Rainbow Bridge?
Rainbow Bridge is an application present on the NEAR Protocol which allows users to transfer their stable coins, NFTs, casual crypto tokens, as well as tokens between Ether and NEAR protocols. This means that if you have these tokens or assets present on Ether, you can simultaneously convert them into NEAR blockchain or transfer these while being able to do the same or the other way around.
This will allow those developers and users to take advantage of the higher throughput that the NEAR Protocol has. If your transaction is stuck on the Ether environment or you are being asked tons of fees to get that transaction validated, then you can just switch the whole thing from Ether blockchain to the NEAR Protocol, and things will then be sorted out for you in real-time.
As per the original requirements of any blockchain media or cryptocurrency, the Rainbow Bridge is also completely permissionless and decentralized. This means that anyone with access to the computer or an active Internet connection could approach Rainbow Bridge and get it working towards the validation of their own transactions. You can send your crypto assets from meta mask or any other Web3 wallet out there to the NEAR blockchain media or wallet while being able to reverse the transition if needed.
But to be able to do so, you would have to take your whole crypto asset and deposit it right into a smart contract on Ether because the direct transfer of token is not yet possible nor feasible that is why it is much more appreciable if you could just get all of your assets back into an Ether smart contract and from here on pushing the button to get it to lead all the way from Ether to NEAR Protocol. Most of the transactions that get validated on NEAR Protocol could be confirmed in less than a second, and most of the time, this only costs a dollar or even under that.
But on the other hand, if, after the validation of your transaction, you wish to move all of your crypto assets from NEAR Protocol all the way back to Ether, then it is going to take much more time and will cost you much more. But if this is something that you have to do at all costs, then you shouldn’t worry so much about the transaction fee and just push the button on this transition.
What is Aurora?
Aurora is a cherished layer two solution implemented on the NEAR Protocol, and its sole purpose is to have the developers be able to expand the current decentralized space that they are providing the users with right now on the NEAR Protocol. But providing the developers with an Ether wrapped virtual ecosystem while grabbing all the functional goods of what NEAR blockchain provides with a low transaction fee is the cherry on top.
Aurora is able to host thousands of transactions in a single second which says something more intimate about Aurora than it does for Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency for that matter. It only requires a two-second block confirmation time for the transaction to get validated and subjected to a dedicated block.
Aurora is made up of the Aurora engine and the Aurora bridge. Aurora engine is nothing but an Ether virtual machine that packs all the goodness of Ether and its functional support but harnesses power from the NEAR Protocol infrastructure. It literally means that Aurora is more compatible with Ether than it is with NEAR Protocol, but it is harnessing the power of NEAR Protocol for the sake of transactions that are about to be validated and subjected to their definitive blocks.
It currently supports any and all tools that are available within the Ether ecosystem. It ultimately becomes way easier for the developers to be able to interject their ideas and manifestations into an Ether compatible platform rather than ripping their code away and rewriting everything from scratch so that the decentralized apps and development tools could work on the NEAR Protocol. Aurora provides them with a literal and fully functional depiction of Ether blockchain.
On the other hand, these developers have the authority to bring into use the Aurora bridge, which is the same technology as the Rainbow Bridge, which allows people to have their assets such as casual crypto tokens, non-fungible tokens, and various other digital aspects from Ether to NEAR Protocol blockchains. The same way a Rainbow Bridge works, where these users have the liberty to Not only bring their assets from a blockchain environment directly into the NEAR Protocol but also reverse the process if need be.
NEAR Protocol’s Token
The NEAR Protocol has its own native token by the name of the NEAR token. Many experts emphasize that the name of the token should be kept on something else and should be a bit more explanatory than naming this token on the blockchain media it represents. But it is the functional aspect of the token that matters the most instead of the statical value or expression of the words in which it is represented.
The NEAR token is an ERC-20 Token that has a max supply of 1 billion tokens which means that as soon as 1 billion of these tokens have been minted and made available for trade over the crypto market, there won’t be any more new tokens minted, and the whole process would come to a halt.
You can use the native NEAR token for the sake of either paying the transaction or storage fee within the network, but with the help of the bridging aspect of the network, you are able to move your assets from one place to another, and when these are present in another blockchain media which facilitates the purchase of products or services with the cryptocurrency you would be able to do exactly the same with your own NEAR token. Smart contract developers who are working around the clock to make the NEAR Protocol populated in regards to other blockchain systems or working beside them around the clock would be able to receive a practical portion of the transaction for the project that they have developed generates in the future.
To help in keeping the NEAR native token scarce in the future, the rest of the transaction fees will get burned or scotched so that there is no abrupt availability of the crypto token within the market. If you plan to keep NEAR tokens in your wallet for a dedicated stretch of time, then you will be able to earn multiple rewards within your NEAR wallet. Other than just keeping these tokens affixed within the wallet, you can take part in the governance of the network by becoming eligible to cast your vote in a dedicated decision that is being ruled at the moment, therefore, becoming a key or practical influence for orchestrating the future decisions of the network.
The NEAR protocol has a strong selling point; it absolutely revamps the whole prospect of transaction fees which means that there are extremely minimal of these that have to be paid for the sake of validating a dedicated transaction. Other than that, it has helped immensely for the sake of increasing scalability and enhancing the interoperability of multiple cryptocurrencies and blockchain systems.
So when push comes to shove, and it will more probably come to shove in the near future as the decentralized space get more crowded, and users are looking at blockchain mediums that are no longer able to fulfil their requests for the sake of validating a transaction then they would definitely be crawling towards the NEAR Protocol so in the aftermath of all of this it definitely has a thrilling appeal to it.