At its core, NEAR Protocol is a decentralized blockchain that operates on a network of independent participants called validators who process transactions and secure the network. These validators must reach consensus, meaning they need to agree on which transactions are valid and should be added to the blockchain. This ensures no one steals funds, double-spend tokens, or manipulates the system. NEAR validators use Proof-of-Stake (PoS), a consensus mechanism that secures the network through economic incentives rather than energy-intensive computational power. Unlike Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system that requires massive amounts of electricity, PoS makes the network environmentally sustainable while maintaining robust security. In Proof-of-Stake, users demonstrate support for specific validators by delegating their NEAR tokens through a process called staking. The principle is straightforward: validators with more delegated tokens are trusted by the community to keep the network safe. If any of these validators is found doing a malicious activity they get kicked from the network and all the tokens staked on them are burned, making dishonesty economically irrational.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.near.org/llms.txt
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Securing the Network
Validators have two main jobs. The first is to validate and execute transactions, aggregating them in the blocks that form the blockchain. Their second job is to oversee other validators, making sure no one produces an invalid block or creates an alternative chain (eg. with the goal of creating a double spend). If a validator is caught misbehaving, then they get “slashed”, meaning that their stake (or part of it) is burned. In the NEAR networks, an attempt to manipulate the chain would mean taking control over the majority of the validators at once, so that the malicious activity won’t be flagged. However, this would require putting a huge sum of capital at risk, since an unsuccessful attack would mean slashing your staked tokens.Validator’s Economy
In exchange for servicing the network, validators are rewarded with a target number of NEAR every epoch. The target value is computed in such a way that, on an annualized basis, it will be 2.5% of the total supply. All transaction fees (minus the part which is allocated as the rebate for contracts) which are collected within each epoch are burned by the system. The inflationary reward is paid out to validators at the same rate regardless of the number of fees collected or burned.Intro to Validators
Validators are responsible for producing and validating blocks and chunks, ensuring the security and integrity of the NEAR network. The hardware requirements for running a validator node vary depending on the staking position. Detailed specifications can be found here: the hardware requirements. You can view the list of currently active validators on platforms like NEAR-STAKING. To become a validator, the minimum stake required is determined by the 300th largest staking proposal. If there are more than 300 proposals, the threshold will be set by the stake amount of the 300th proposal, as long as it exceeds the minimum threshold of 25,500$NEAR. The current seat price to join the active validator set is updated in real-time on NEAR BLOCKS. Any validator node with a stake greater than the current seat price can join the set of active validators.