The Near Protocol ecosystem has seen a notable increase in activity and the value of its cryptocurrency, NEAR, following the release of the Nightshade 2.0 update.
This update, which went live this week, introduces significant improvements to network efficiency and scalability, which has led to significant appreciation of NEAR in the days following launch.
The developers of Near Protocol presented Nightshade 2.0 as “the biggest technological step” in the history of the network. This update improves scalability and introduces stateless validation, an innovative approach that elevates chain performance and improves efficiency.
Nightshade 2.0 update released
Nightshade 2.0 represents a crucial advancement in Near Protocol's sharding architecture. The stateless validation functionality introduced with this update allows validators to access the information needed to validate changes to network state directly from the chain, rather than maintaining state locally. This change not only improves the efficiency of transaction validation, but also reduces operating costs for nodes, which facilitates the participation of more validators in the network.
Bowen Wang, protocol lead at Near One, highlighted that “Nightshade 2.0 is a fundamental restructuring of Near sharding and represents an important milestone in the Near development roadmap.”
It is estimated that this update will increase transaction execution speed by around 400%. This is a significant and important increase that will allow the network to handle a greater volume of transactions simultaneously.
Implementing stateless validation also has significant implications for network decentralization. By reducing the hardware requirements to operate a node, it is expected that more users can become validators, which will strengthen the security and resilience of the network in the long term.
Successful Nightshade 2.0 Release Drives Near Price Up
The crypto market response to the launch of Nightshade 2.0 has been positive, with NEAR price increasing by 30% in the last 7 days. According to data from CoinMarketCap, the price of NEAR went from $3,89 on August 18 to $5,15 today.
Source: CoinMarketCap
This increase comes against a backdrop of growing activity in the Near ecosystem, which has seen a 570% increase in transaction volume since August 2023, recently reaching more than 2.000 billion cumulative transactions, according to the platform. Flipside Crypto.
In addition, the number of wallets in the Near network has grown exponentially, exceeding 116 million wallets, according to the platform. This growth is indicative of the growing interest in the protocol and its ability to attract developers and users. Amid this growing usage demand, Near Protocol's ability to handle higher transaction volumes has improved with the arrival of the Nightshade 2.0 update. This implementation also sends a clear message to the market about Near's commitment to innovation and continuous improvement.
Overall, Nightshade 2.0 has become a major catalyst for Near Protocol, boosting both its technical performance and market value.
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