NEAR keeps 2.5 percent emission instead of 1.6: what you can do about the staking yield

The NEAR mainnet still mints up to 2.5 percent new tokens a year. The proposal to cut that ceiling to 1.6 percent was not part of the protocol on October 18, 2026. It still carries draft status, and by its own wording it cannot take effect through a vote alone. Anyone staking NEAR should therefore keep calculating with the old rate until a protocol upgrade lands.

The price is moving the other way. NEAR trades at $4.69, down 6.2 percent over 24 hours and 17.56 percent over the past week. That makes NEAR the weakest of the 25 largest cryptocurrencies on a weekly view, ahead of Zcash at minus 16.52 percent and Cardano at minus 15.88 percent. Bitcoin lost 3.23 percent over the same stretch, Ether 7.33 percent. Every price in this article comes from CoinGecko market data as of October 18, 2026.

The emission figure in the NEAR protocol still reads 2.5 percent

The annual ceiling for new NEAR is a protocol parameter, not a foundation pledge. The protocol holds it as a fraction: one fortieth, or 2.5 percent of total supply. The project's developer documentation describes the same value as a target and states that the target is calculated to amount to 2.5 percent of total supply per year (NEAR documentation).

That value sits unchanged in the live mainnet on October 18, 2026, in protocol version 86. In units, it works out like this: at a total supply of 1,309.3 million NEAR, up to 32.7 million new tokens may be created in a year. At a 1.6 percent ceiling it would be 20.9 million.

Why the emission rate is the more important number for stakers

NEAR staking rewards do not come out of transaction fees. Fees are burned after the contract rebate, and rewards come out of emission. If the emission rate falls, so does the pool every staker is paid from. If the amount of bonded tokens rises at the same time, that same pool is split across more stake. Together, those two figures produce the yield that actually arrives.

What the draft cut to 1.6 percent sets out

The proposal has sat in NEAR's governance forum since October 7, 2026. It was filed by Sal Ternullo for SVRN, which the document identifies as OceanPal Inc., listed on NASDAQ under the ticker SVRN. It envisages a linear glide in maximum annual emission from 2.5 to 1.6 percent over 24 months, roughly 3.75 basis points a month. Ahead of that sits a grace period the document puts at 90 days in one place and at a full quarter in another.

The reward split stays at 90 percent for staking participants and 10 percent for the project treasury under the draft; measured, the document cites 10.13 percent, correcting the often quoted 96-to-4 split. Over the 24 months of the glide path, the draft's own arithmetic has 11.8 million NEAR never created, equal to 0.86 percent of supply. Over six years the document names 66.1 million NEAR, or 4.36 percent, valued at around $284 million at a price of $4.30.

On yield, the draft's table cites 5.268 percent gross today and 3.372 percent at the 1.6 percent target, both assuming a staking ratio of 42.71 percent. A different section of the same document carries 4.80, 3.93 and 3.07 percent for the first two years. That spread stands as the document leaves it: planning with one of those numbers means planning with a figure from a draft that does its own maths two different ways.

A vote on its own does not change the emission rate

The decisive sentence sits in the draft itself: the proposal cannot take effect through a House of Stake vote alone. The ceiling is a protocol parameter, and changing it requires validators to adopt it through the usual upgrade process. The document lists two stages for that, ratification in governance and then adoption in the protocol. Formally the proposal is filed as a decision requiring a supermajority, and it still reads as a draft.

Our October 3 report described the proposal ahead of the vote. Two weeks on, the finding reads differently: the hurdle is not the vote but the upgrade behind it. Until validators run the new value, 2.5 percent stands, whatever a governance round decided.

The staking yield hangs on two figures, not one

The formula behind the draft's numbers is plain: take the emission rate, subtract the treasury share, divide the result by the staking ratio. With the document's assumptions that gives 2.5 percent times 0.9, divided by 42.71 percent, hence the 5.268 percent cited. The same formula with 1.6 percent gives 3.372 percent. The calculation holds up, but it rests entirely on the staking ratio inside it.

That ratio is no constant. It shifts with every staker who bonds or withdraws tokens, and it moves faster than a protocol parameter. So it is worth looking at where it actually stands today. If you are planning around a yield, current provider terms are in our staking platform comparison; the figures calculated here are protocol gross values, before any validator or exchange fee.

Our own survey: 601.0 million NEAR sit with 403 validators

On October 18, 2026, 601.0 million NEAR are bonded to active validators on the NEAR mainnet, spread across 403 addresses. Against total supply of 1,309.3 million NEAR that works out to a staking ratio of 45.90 percent. Because circulating supply at NEAR is effectively identical to total supply, the choice of denominator changes nothing here. From the previous epoch, a further 13 validators dropped out of the active set.

The basis is the NEAR mainnet's protocol values and the stakes of all 403 active validators, plus total supply from the latest block. That covers 403 validator stakes and four protocol values. cryptoticker.io collected this data itself on October 18, 2026.

An epoch runs twelve hours

The length of an epoch follows from the same protocol values: 43,200 blocks at one block a second, so twelve hours. The figure matters in practice, because rewards and changes in the validator set follow epochs rather than calendar days. Unstake your NEAR and you do not get them straight back; release takes several epochs. Exactly how many depends on the validator or the provider and is set out in their terms.

At today's ratio the yield comes out below the draft's figure

Feed the ratio we measured, 45.90 percent, into the draft's formula and both ends shift down. Today the calculation gives 4.90 percent gross rather than the 5.268 percent cited. At the 1.6 percent target it gives 3.14 percent rather than 3.372 percent. The reason is not a new decision but arithmetic: the same emission spreads across more bonded tokens.

The draft names no denominator for its 42.71 percent, so the two ratios are not necessarily measured on the same definition, and part of the 3.19 percentage point gap may come from that. The direction holds regardless. The more NEAR sits in staking, the less is left for each individual stake, and the yield a draft from October 7 works with is not the yield a staker sees on October 18.

Minus 17.56 percent over seven days, plus 27.91 percent over thirty

The price picture depends on the window, and both windows belong in the same view. On a weekly view NEAR is down 17.56 percent, putting it last in the top 25. Over 30 days it is up 27.91 percent. The weekly high was $5.89 on October 12, the daily high $5.05, the daily low $4.63. At a market value of $6.15 billion and daily turnover of $620.6 million, NEAR ranks 20th.

In our view the emission dispute does not account for the weekly loss on its own. Against that reading stands the breadth of the move: Zcash, Cardano and Stellar lost 16.52, 15.88 and 15.05 percent over the same period with no emission proposal of their own. For it stands the ranking: NEAR fell harder than those three, and for a token whose yield hangs on an open parameter, an unresolved position is a discount. Either way this is a correlation, not a cause, and no price target follows from it.

What has changed since our NEAR article of October 16

NEAR stood at $5.26 on October 16, when we reported on the confidential deposit route for SOL on NEAR. By October 18 that had become $4.69, down 10.8 percent in two days. The $5 level, which held at the time, broke in that window and has not been reclaimed since; the daily high of $5.05 sat just above it, the daily low of $4.63 well below.

Nothing has been added to the protocol since, and that is precisely the finding. Between October 16 and October 18 the emission rate did not move, the staking ratio stands at 45.90 percent, and the ceiling reads 2.5 percent. The only thing that changed is the price at which that yield is bought.

Buying in Germany: MiCA authorisation of the exchange, and custody after that

Since the European crypto regulation MiCA, anyone buying NEAR in Germany buys from a provider that has to be authorised for it. MiCA is the EU regulation on markets in crypto-assets; it sets out which providers may offer and hold crypto-assets in the EU. In practice, when getting in: check which authorisation your trading venue works under, and whether it will keep supporting NEAR after a protocol change. Costs differ sharply between venues, and the comparison at the end of this article puts them side by side.

Staking adds the custody question. Hand NEAR to a validator or an exchange and control over it is no longer yours for the duration of the bond. At a calculated 4.90 percent gross that is a different trade-off than at ten percent, and a different one again if the yield is meant to glide towards three percent over 24 months.

Leverage and liquidation: what a 17.56 percent weekly loss triggers

A leveraged NEAR position survives a week like this one only with room to spare above the liquidation threshold. At ten times leverage a move of roughly ten percent against you wipes out the stake; NEAR lost 10.8 percent between October 16 and October 18 alone. Daily high to daily low spanned 8.3 percent. If you trade with leverage, measure that range against your buffer, not against the closing price.

Holding period and tax: staking income runs differently from sale proceeds

For German investors, income tax law separates two events that coincide in staking. Selling NEAR falls under private disposals in section 23 of the Income Tax Act, with the one-year period set out there. Ongoing staking rewards are assessed separately and regularly land under other income in section 22.

In practice each individual reward counts in staking, with its timestamp and its value. At a calculated 4.90 percent gross and a payout per epoch, so twice a day, a few hundred individual events add up over a year. Keeping that by hand costs time; the usual tools take the counting off your hands. Your own case remains a matter for a tax adviser, and this text does not replace one.

NEAR staking: 2.5 percent emission stands until the protocol changes

1. Recalculate your own yield. The protocol gross figure on October 18, 2026 works out at 4.90 percent; what reaches you sits below that after validator or exchange fees. Provider terms are in the staking platform comparison.
2. Collect the records for the tax year. Every reward counts with its timestamp and value, and at two payouts a day that adds up. A tool from the tax software comparison takes the counting off your hands.
3. Check the venue before you buy more. Authorisation, costs and NEAR availability differ sharply; the exchange comparison puts them side by side. You can follow the draft itself in NEAR's governance forum.

(As of October 18, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy. Crypto-assets are highly volatile and a total loss is possible.)