NEAR holders approve 1.6% issuance cap, with validators still to act

NEAR's House of Stake has approved proposal HSP-029, which cuts the network's maximum annual token issuance from 2.5% to 1.6% over 24 months. The ballot closed on Nov. 2 and the result was announced by NEAR the same day, but the lower ceiling does not bind the chain until validators adopt it through a protocol upgrade.

The tally was lopsided. Hodl Press reported that 99.97% of participating veNEAR backed the proposal, with turnout of about 62% and 32 accounts voting in favor, representing roughly 3.29 million veNEAR. Unchained noted that NEAR's own post carried no vote count and that the proposal page it reviewed listed no tally, so the figures come from the published results rather than the announcement itself, Unchained reported.

Under the approved schedule, the cap falls by about 3.75 basis points a month, recalculated every epoch rather than in fixed steps, until it reaches 1.6% in month 24. New tokens keep the same split as before: 90% to stakers and 10% to the NEAR treasury. Daily issuance would drop from roughly 89,500 NEAR at the current cap to about 57,300 once the ramp is complete, a difference of about 32,200 NEAR a day by Unchained's calculation from the proposal's measurements.

The supply and yield effects are spelled out in the proposal text. HSP-029's author, Sal Ternullo, models 11.8 million fewer NEAR issued over two years and 66.1 million over six, leaving supply 4.36% below the current path. At the staking participation rate measured in September, gross staking yield would fall from about 5.27% to 3.37% at the target rate, and 24 validator pools would stop covering their own costs at the new rate and the token price used in the proposal, according to Hodl Press. Ternullo has estimated the cut could reduce his own company's annual income by about 970,000 tokens.

The daily figures Unchained worked out rest on the total supply the proposal measured on Sept. 22. NEAR also said quarterly reports will compare realized issuance with the published schedule once the ramp is live, a commitment carried in both accounts of the vote. Ternullo has argued the change is needed because the network's initial development phase is complete and high issuance is no longer as useful for supporting security, a case he first made when the proposal went out in early October, Hodl Press reported.

SVRN, the Nasdaq-listed firm Ternullo leads, disclosed in the proposal that it holds more than 55 million NEAR, more than 90% of it staked, accounting for over 8% of all staked NEAR, and that it intended to vote in favor. Unchained reported that the same disclosure notes the cut lowers the yield on SVRN's own stake.

Nothing changes on the network yet. The result first goes to the House of Stake's Security Council for review before ratification, a roughly 90-day grace period follows so wallets, exchanges, custodians and staking platforms can update, and validators must then adopt the change through a protocol upgrade, the steps set out in NEAR's announcement as Unchained described them. The proposal text itself states that it "cannot take effect on a House of Stake vote alone."

The path is familiar. NEAR halved issuance from 5% to 2.5% in 2025 through the same validator upgrade route, according to the proposal. Ternullo presented HSP-029 as one of the options raised after NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin withdrew a Sovereign Fund proposal in August, citing what Polosukhin called "risks the protocol should not internalize." Hodl Press added that Ternullo had earlier proposed eventually ending new issuance entirely in favor of a fixed supply, and that the fixed-supply option was not part of the approved plan.