NEAR Protocol achieves 1 million transactions per second in major scalability milestone

Key Takeaways

• NEAR Protocol has reached 1 million transactions per second (TPS) in benchmark testing, marking a significant scalability achievement.
• The result validates NEAR's sharded blockchain architecture and its approach to horizontal scaling while maintaining decentralization.

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NEAR Protocol, a sharded layer 1 blockchain designed for high scalability, has achieved one million transactions per second in a major scalability milestone that demonstrates its capacity for massive throughput in benchmark testing.

The achievement validates NEAR’s sharded architecture and its potential for horizontal scaling without compromising decentralization. Recent engineering enhancements in NEAR’s execution and consensus layers have improved throughput for realistic workloads on cost-effective hardware.

The milestone was enabled by Nightshade 2.0, an upgrade to NEAR Protocol’s sharding system that introduces stateless validation to enhance efficiency and distribute workload across multiple shards. The upgrade has contributed to improvements in block times and finality, supporting the protocol’s ability to handle increased transaction demands.

This positions NEAR to support high-volume applications in cross-chain DeFi and onchain AI, fostering growth in the multi-chain ecosystem. NEAR supports decentralized applications through features such as intents and chain signatures for cross-chain interactions.