NEAR Protocol (NEAR) Votes to Cut Token Issuance to 1.6%

By Nodora News · 3 November 2026

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) governance approved HSP-029, cutting maximum annual token issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months, as the NEAR price fell 7%.

NEAR Protocol (NEAR) token holders have voted to cut the network's maximum annual issuance from 2.5% to 1.6%, phased in over 24 months. The proposal, HSP-029, passed NEAR's House of Stake governance vote on Monday, November 2, with about 99.97% of the votes cast in favour. The change is not live yet: it still needs Security Council review, a grace period and a validator upgrade before it binds. Meanwhile the NEAR price has kept falling, trading around $3.83 on OKX, down roughly 7.5% in 24 hours.

Key takeaways

• HSP-029 lowers NEAR's maximum annual issuance ceiling from 2.5% to 1.6%, a cut of about 36%.
• The vote closed at 16:48 UTC on November 2 with about 3.29 million veNEAR in favour and roughly 62% turnout.
• Newly minted NEAR would still be split 90% to stakers and 10% to the protocol treasury.
• The proposal estimates about 11.8 million fewer NEAR issued over two years and 66.1 million fewer over six.
• NEAR is down about 7.5% on the day, so the market has not rewarded the vote so far.

What NEAR's House of Stake approved

The House of Stake is NEAR Protocol's on-chain governance body. Voting power there is measured in veNEAR, which holders get by locking their NEAR tokens. HSP-029 asked them to change one protocol setting: the ceiling on how many new NEAR tokens the network can create each year to pay validators and stakers.

Under the plan, that ceiling would fall in a straight line from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months, adjusted every epoch (a short, fixed block of network time). That works out to roughly 3.75 basis points (0.0375 percentage points) less each month. Nothing else in the issuance system changes. There is no new spending and no validator subsidy attached, and the 90/10 split between stakers and the treasury stays as it is.

According to the vote tally reported by Altcoin Reporter, 32 accounts voted for the proposal, while the four other accounts that took part held only about 1,071 veNEAR between them. The proposal needed a two-thirds supermajority and a 35% quorum, and it cleared both easily. Crypto Briefing reports it was authored by Sal Ternullo, CEO of SVRN.

How much the NEAR issuance cut changes supply

The proposal itself includes estimates of what the lower ceiling would mean, assuming staking participation stays near September's level:

• Maximum annual issuance: 2.5% now, falling to 1.6% after 24 months
• Daily issuance: about 89,500 NEAR now, about 57,300 NEAR at full implementation
• NEAR not minted, first two years: roughly 11.8 million
• NEAR not minted, six years: roughly 66.1 million
• Total supply after six years: about 4.36% smaller than under the old ceiling
• Gross staking yield: projected to fall from about 5.27% to about 3.37%

This is the second cut in a little over a year. NEAR already halved its maximum issuance from 5% to 2.5% in October 2025.

Why NEAR wants lower token inflation

Token issuance works like inflation. New tokens go to people who stake, so anyone holding NEAR without staking it slowly owns a smaller share of the total supply. The proposal argues that this transfer has gone far enough. It says roughly 57% of NEAR's supply is not staked, and that the active validator set is already oversubscribed, meaning the network has more validator demand than it needs. Paying out at the old rate, the proposal says, mostly shifts value to stakers and adds selling pressure, since some rewards are sold on the market.

NEAR's team framed the vote as proof that the network's economics can change in the open. In a post on X, it said token holders put a core setting to a public vote and the new rate will roll out epoch by epoch on a published schedule, giving a supply path anyone can check.

The trade-off is lower rewards for stakers. If the staking yield falls toward 3.4%, some holders may find staking less attractive, and validators will earn less from new issuance over time.

NEAR price reaction and the wider market

The vote has not lifted the price. NEAR has been one of the weakest large-cap coins this week, falling between about 7% and 11% in 24-hour windows across several days while the wider market slid after the record Binance hack. The broader backdrop is also heavy, with US spot Bitcoin ETFs posting a second straight day of outflows, as we covered in Bitcoin (BTC) ETF Outflows: BlackRock's IBIT Sheds $405M in a Day.

Prices on OKX at the time of writing:

• NEAR: about $3.83, down roughly 7.5% in 24 hours
• Bitcoin (BTC): about $77,050, down roughly 1.4%
• Ether (ETH): about $2,268, down roughly 1%

A lower issuance ceiling is a slow change. It trims new supply a little each month rather than all at once, which helps explain why traders are reacting to the market mood today rather than to a supply shift that will take two years to finish. You can follow NEAR and other major coins on Nodora's live charts.

What happens next for HSP-029

Approval by the House of Stake is only the first step. Several stages remain before the lower rate applies:

• Timelock and review: the proposal now sits in a 14-day timelock, and the House of Stake Security Council must review the result before ratification.
• Grace period: a 90-day grace period follows, giving wallets, exchanges, custodians and staking providers time to update their disclosures.
• Validator upgrade: NEAR One has to ship a protocol upgrade, and validators must choose to run it. The proposal itself says validator adoption is what makes the change binding.
• 24-month ramp: once live, the ceiling steps down every epoch until it reaches 1.6%.

Things worth watching are whether validators adopt the upgrade quickly, how staking participation responds to lower yields, and whether NEAR's price finds a floor once the wider market settles. This article is for information only and is not financial advice.

#NEAR Protocol #Tokenomics #Governance #Staking #Altcoins

This article is general information, not financial advice.