NEAR Protocol, a Layer 1 blockchain, has achieved a significant milestone by launching 600-millisecond block times with 1.2-second finality. This lightning-fast speed sets NEAR apart from other major chains like Solana and Ethereum, offering real-time blockchain user experience.
The NEAR team attributes this achievement to their Doomslug consensus mechanism, which provides a high level of finality guarantee with minimal risk of malicious attacks. With transaction finality 10 times faster than Solana and 600 times faster than Ethereum, NEAR is positioning itself as a top contender in the blockchain space.
This speed update opens the door for real-time applications such as AI agents, games, and global financial use cases. By eliminating the need for centralized intermediaries, NEAR reduces associated risks and enables blockchain to feel as instant as Web2 without compromising its Web3 principles.
Looking ahead, NEAR has ambitious plans to further improve its block time to approximately 200 milliseconds by the end of 2025. This goal will be achieved through ongoing innovations in consensus and block production, building on the recent ‘optimistic block’ implementation in Nightshade 2.0.
The latest speed update not only enhances transaction processing efficiency but also simplifies developers’ tasks around confirmations, reorganizations, and network delays. It also paves the way for advancements in NEAR’s work on intents, allowing AI agents and smart contracts to trigger on-chain actions in real time.
In summary, NEAR Protocol’s achievement of 600-millisecond block times marks a significant milestone in the blockchain industry. With its focus on speed, security, and real-time applications, NEAR is solidifying its position as a leader in the rapidly evolving blockchain space.
At the time of writing, NEAR is trading at $3.14, showing positive growth trends over the past 24 hours, week, and month. Despite a decrease from its all-time high in January 2022, NEAR’s ongoing developments and advancements position it for continued success in the future.