NEAR’s on-chain governance body has approved a plan to cut maximum NEAR issuance from 2.5% a year to 1.6%. The House of Stake vote on proposal HSP-029 closed at 16:48 UTC on Monday with 99.97% of the veNEAR cast in favour. That is only the first step. Nothing changes on the network until validators run an upgrade carrying the new schedule.
The tally is recorded in the House of Stake voting contract and on the proposal page. It shows 32 accounts voting for, with about 3.29 million veNEAR. The other four accounts together held about 1,071 veNEAR. Turnout was about 62% of the 5.27 million veNEAR eligible at the snapshot. The proposal needed a two-thirds supermajority and a 35% quorum, and it cleared both comfortably. The contract moved the proposal into its timelock stage once voting ended.
What the proposal changes
HSP-029 changes a single protocol parameter. Under the plan, first posted on the NEAR governance forum, maximum annual issuance would fall in a straight line from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months, adjusted every epoch, which works out to roughly 3.75 basis points a month. New tokens would still be split 90% to stakers and 10% to the protocol treasury. A 90-day grace period comes first, so wallets, exchanges, custodians and staking providers can update their disclosures before the first reduction.
The proposal’s own modelling puts the effect at about 11.8 million fewer NEAR minted over two years and 66.1 million fewer over six. That would leave supply 4.36% smaller than under the current cap. The trade-off falls on stakers. Using the network as it stood on September 22, when 42.71% of supply was staked, the document estimates gross staking yield falling from 5.268% now to 3.372% once the 1.6% rate is reached.
NEAR’s issuance has been cut once already, and not smoothly. The network halved it from 5% to 2.5% in 2025 through a validator upgrade, even though the community validator vote held that August fell short of its own two-thirds-of-stake bar, as Coindaro recounts. The upgrade drew criticism at the time. HSP-029 sends this cut through House of Stake first.
Why the vote does not settle it
Two steps remain. Proposal 29 runs on the contract’s Classic flow, which carries a 14-day timelock after voting ends. After that, NEAR One would need to ship an upgrade, and each validator operator decides whether to run it. The proposal is direct about this. House of Stake ratification is necessary, it says, but validator adoption is what makes the change binding.
That split matters because voting power in House of Stake comes from NEAR locked in the system, not from the stake each validator runs. The 5.27 million veNEAR eligible in this vote compares with about 1.31 billion NEAR in total supply. Some validators have already reacted. TokenPost reported that Polkachu has said it would adopt the upgrade, while Axia asked for an assessment of validators whose seats depend on delegations from support programs.
Who proposed it
The author is Sal Ternullo, chief executive of Nasdaq-listed SVRN (OceanPal Inc.). The proposal’s conflict-of-interest section says SVRN holds about 55 million NEAR, more than 90% of it staked, which is over 8% of all staked NEAR. On SVRN’s own figures, the lower yield would cost the company roughly 855,000 NEAR a year at the target rate. The document argues that a lower issuance rate means SVRN absorbs less of the float over time, which it says should reassure those most concerned about the company’s footprint.
The document also points to Solana, which ratified a similar change in August with 67.001% of stake. AltcoinReporter covered that Solana issuance cut when validators approved it. In its comparison table, the proposal has NEAR’s gross yield moving from 4.80% to 3.07%, against Solana’s 5.84% to 2.25%. Those figures differ from the 5.268% the proposal measured in September. As Coindaro noted, the author puts the gap down to the drop in the staking ratio before the snapshot, so the comparison is a rough guide.
Market backdrop
The vote arrives during a weak stretch for the token. NEAR traded near $4.01 on Monday, according to CoinGecko, down about 7% in 24 hours and 12% over the week. The proposal itself notes that NEAR had climbed 86% in the two weeks before its September measurement, from $2.31 to $4.30, and that the staking ratio fell from 46.92% to 42.71% over that period as about 54.5 million NEAR was unstaked.
For holders, the practical timeline is long. Even if validators adopt the upgrade quickly, the 14-day timelock and 90-day grace period mean the first reduction is unlikely before early 2027, and the full 1.6% rate would arrive about two years after the ramp starts.
FAQ
Did NEAR’s inflation change today?
No. The House of Stake vote approved HSP-029, but issuance stays capped at 2.5% until validators adopt a protocol upgrade, and a 90-day grace period follows before the ramp begins.
How much lower will NEAR issuance be?
The cap falls from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months. The proposal estimates 11.8 million fewer NEAR minted over two years and 66.1 million fewer over six.
What happens to staking rewards?
Based on September’s staking ratio, the proposal models gross staking yield falling from about 5.27% to 3.37% at the 1.6% rate. Actual yields will depend on how much NEAR is staked at the time.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
