NEAR Protocol
NEARSharded PoS blockchain with Nightshade consensus. No kill switch. Foundation-led development.
Last updated: Dec 26, 2025
0.4 × Chain + 0.4 × Control + 0.2 × Fairness
Chain Score
Technical and economic decentralization of the chain
Control Score
Power and control structures around the protocol
Fairness Score
Launch, distribution, and governance fairness
Chain Score
Technical/economic decentralization
Nakamoto Coefficient
Number of independent entities that would need to collude to compromise the system. Higher is better.
Validator/Miner Concentration
Share of top 5 validators/miners in stake/hashrate. Lower concentration is better.
Client Diversity
Number of independent full-node implementations with relevant market share. More diversity is better.
Node Geography & Hosting
Geographic distribution of nodes and cloud hosting concentration. Lower cloud % is better.
Control Score
Power and control structures
Corporate/Foundation Capture
Is there a dominant company/foundation controlling roadmap, marketing, and hiring? Can the project survive without them?
Repo/Protocol Ownership
Distribution of merge rights in core repositories (clients, specs). More distributed is better.
Brand & Frontend Control
Who owns brand, domains, main frontends, official wallets/apps? Decentralized ownership is better.
Treasury & Upgrade Keys
Composition of treasury/upgrade multisigs and admin keys. More independent signers is better.
Admin Halt Capability
Can a single entity or small group unilaterally halt, freeze, or censor the chain? This is a critical centralization risk.
Protocol Immutability
Has the protocol made fundamental rule changes (consensus mechanism, monetary policy, contentious forks)? Immutable rules are a core property of decentralization.
Fairness Score
Launch and distribution fairness
Launch Fairness / Premine
Team/VC/Foundation premine and launch model (fair launch vs. sale/IDO). Less premine is better.
Token Distribution & Governance Power
Share of insiders (team/VC/exchanges) in supply and governance votes. Less insider control is better.