NEAR Protocol achieves 1 million TPS, shifting towards AI, Intents, and protocol innovation in 2026

Technological Advancements

NEAR Protocol achieved a major technical milestone in 2025. It processed up to 1 million transactions per second (TPS) on the public testnet, and expanded the number of shards from 6 to 9, resulting in a 50% increase in throughput. The implementation of dynamic re-sharding mechanisms enabled the network to scale flexibly according to demand fluctuations.

This sharding technology serves as a key differentiator as rival networks advance zkEVM architecture and strengthen cross-chain interoperability. NEAR’s announcement that “sharding allows scaling of execution across all Intents” signifies the implementation of an architecture optimized for next-generation transaction protocols.

AI Innovation and Privacy Protection

The NEAR Foundation’s newly launched NEAR AI Cloud and Private Chat symbolize a shift toward an AI era led by users. These tools operate with hardware-based encryption, ensuring user data ownership. They are already integrated into platforms like Brave Nightly, OpenMind AGI, and Phala Network, reaching over 100 million users.

NEAR’s policy that “users should own their interactions with AI” clearly counters centralized AI systems. Designed based on verifiable privacy principles, this approach could establish a new standard for AI integration within crypto asset protocols.

Strategic Directions for 2026

NEAR’s published roadmap for 2026 focuses on three core points:

• AI-Intents Integration: Combining AI agents and user decision-making on the protocol to enable intelligent transaction execution
• Expansion to Major Trading Platforms: Establishing NEAR Intents as an on-chain option on major exchanges
• Governance Innovation: Transitioning from binary voting to context-aware decision-making through a new voting mechanism called “House of Stake”

Market Response and Valuation

Against this backdrop of updates, NEAR’s price is under upward pressure. According to the latest data, NEAR (currently priced at $1.69) has shown stable movement over the past 24 hours, indicating that market participants are evaluating the protocol’s technological progress.

For NEAR, 2025 was a “transitional year to real-world scale,” and 2026 is expected to be the year to establish itself as a core protocol in decentralized finance, driven by three pillars: AI, Intents, and infrastructure innovation.