NEAR Ahead of the Vote on Cutting Issuance to 1.6 Percent: Why the Price Is Falling Now

A proposal has been sitting in NEAR's governance forum since September 30, 2026 that would permanently shrink the reward for staking: the maximum annual issuance is to fall from 2.5 to 1.6 percent, spread over 24 months. For you as a holder of NEAR that is the more important news of the weekend, even if the price is giving way right now for a different reason. According to market data from CoinGecko, NEAR costs $4.68 on October 3, down 5.65 percent within a day.

The connection is less direct than it looks. The issuance cut is a proposal that has not yet been voted on, and it would press the yield down only in small steps across two years. The daily loss belongs instead to a broad decline across the whole market, and to a month in which NEAR had climbed by almost 148 percent. Together, the two decide whether staking NEAR still pays for you.

The NEAR Issuance Proposal in Full

The proposal was tabled by Sal Ternullo, managing director of Svrn AI, on September 30, 2026, under the title "NEAR Governance Discussion: Reducing Issuance to 1.6%, and the Path to a Fixed Supply". It is a basis for discussion, and no parameter has been settled. The text names a clear figure: the maximum annual issuance, meaning the ceiling for newly created NEAR, is to fall from today's 2.5 percent to 1.6 percent.

Issuance describes the quantity of tokens a network creates anew and pays out to the validators that produce blocks. At NEAR the protocol distributes those new tokens by a fixed key: 90 percent go to the stakers, 10 percent into the network treasury. That key stays untouched under the proposal. What changes is only the total quantity that comes into existence at all.

It would not be the first cut of this kind. NEAR has already halved the ceiling once, from 5 percent to today's 2.5 percent. In the author's presentation the new proposal is a phase 1 on a longer road, at the end of which a fixed total supply is meant to stand. What exactly would happen in later phases is something the paper does not pin down.

From 2.5 to 1.6 Percent: How the Cut Works Over 24 Months

The pace is what decides the effect. The proposal sets no cut-off date on which issuance jumps from one value to the other. Instead the rate is to fall in small steps per epoch, over 24 months in total. An epoch at NEAR is the accounting period after which the protocol distributes rewards and determines the validator set afresh; it lasts around twelve hours.

This design has a practical reason. An abrupt cut would upend the arithmetic of every validator in a single day, and smaller operators whose income sits just above their server costs could drop out. A path spread over two years leaves them time to adjust fees and costs.

For you that means there is no date on which your yield collapses. There is a direction that, from the resolution onwards, bites a little harder with every distribution. Anyone who records their staking income month by month will see the change across quarters rather than days.

What the Cut Means in Token Terms

The proposal names two figures for that. At today's rate of 2.5 percent, around 89,500 new NEAR arrive every day. Over a year that comes to roughly 32.7 million tokens. And across a period of six years the downward path would avoid some 66 million NEAR that would otherwise have been created. Measured against the circulating supply of around 1.31 billion NEAR, that equals a good 5 percent.

Staking Yield From 5.4 to 3.5 Percent: What Delegators Lose

The number that counts for investors is in the paper as well. The staking yield, reported in the network as an annual return, stands at around 5.4 percent today. Once implemented in full it would be about 3.5 percent. That is 1.9 percentage points less, a good third of today's return.

The proposal works the example through itself: anyone delegating 1,000 NEAR holds about 21 NEAR fewer after two years than under today's rules. At the October 3 price that is just under $98. The figure looks small, and that is precisely where the proposers' argument lies: the yield given up is manageable, while the effect on the token supply is lasting.

Delegation means that you do not hand over your tokens. You assign them to a validator, which produces blocks with them. You remain the owner, and the validator keeps part of the reward as a fee. That fee is the point at which the cut hits you harder or more softly: where a validator already takes a high share, even less survives from a smaller gross reward. A look at our overview of staking providers is therefore worth taking before the resolution rather than after it.

89,500 NEAR a Day: The Dilution for Holders Who Do Not Stake

Anyone holding NEAR without staking receives nothing from the issuance and carries it all the same. This effect is called dilution: the total supply grows, your share of it shrinks, even if the number of tokens in your wallet stays the same. At 89,500 new NEAR a day, ownership shifts continuously from the passive holders to those who delegate.

The proposal names this point explicitly as a justification. High issuance, it argues, is a redistribution at the expense of those who do not stake, and the larger the network grows, the harder that is to justify. For you one simple consequence follows: if your NEAR sit unused on an exchange or in a wallet, you lose more relative share today than you would after a cut. The issuance cut therefore shrinks the yield of the stakers and the disadvantage of the non-stakers alike.

That explains why such a proposal meets different interests inside the same network. A delegator with a large holding loses running income. A holder who does not delegate, for tax or practical reasons, gains. In the end a vote of those entitled to vote settles this conflict of interest, and no decision by the core team does.

House of Stake: Who Votes on the Issuance Cut

House of Stake is NEAR's governance system, in which holders of voting rights decide on motions. The proposal is to be submitted there as a complete motion for phase 1; the forum post of September 30 says that will happen "next week". No fixed voting date has therefore been published, and the outcome is open as well.

That sequence matters for placing the news. The discussion runs in the forum first, and on this post it has already gathered a fair number of replies. Only afterwards does the formal vote follow. What exists today is a reasoned motion with concrete figures, and not a settled change to the protocol parameters.

For your own watching, that means the date to look at is the submission of the phase 1 motion at House of Stake. Only with it does it become clear which wording is actually being voted on, and whether the 1.6 percent and the 24 months survive the discussion unchanged.

The Reasoning: An Oversubscribed Validator Set and Revenue From Intents

High issuance serves a purpose in young networks: the premium pays operators for providing hardware in the first place. The proposal argues that NEAR has this build-up phase behind it. The validator set, it says, is oversubscribed, so there are more applicants than places. When operators are queuing, the network does not have to lure them in with high rewards.

As a second argument the text names growing revenue from NEAR Intents, the network's own system for cross-chain swaps. That revenue flows into buybacks of NEAR on the open market. Where real proceeds create demand, the logic runs, fewer newly created tokens are needed to finance the network.

Both justifications stand and fall with the reliability of that revenue. That Intents is no sure thing became clear on October 1: after an exploit the system halted withdrawals, as cryptoticker.io reported that day. A justification built on running proceeds is therefore only as strong as the operation that generates them. You can read the motion in NEAR's governance forum, and Crypto Briefing has published a summary of the core figures.

The October 3 Price Drop and the State of the Broader Market

The proposal does not explain the daily loss. According to market data from CoinGecko, NEAR loses 5.65 percent on October 3 to $4.68, and the decline does not stand alone: Bitcoin gives up 1.93 percent the same day, Ether 2.65 percent, Dogecoin 4.85 percent, Cardano 4.58 percent and Stellar 4.80 percent. NEAR falls harder than the large names, yet in the same direction as the broad market.

The second part of the explanation lies in the month before. On the same data NEAR stands around 148 percent above its level of 30 days ago, while over a week it is 3.66 percent down. After a move of that size, profit taking is the normal case, and the name that has risen the most usually gives way the most clearly in a weak market phase. From its all-time high of $20.44 in January 2022, NEAR remains 77.1 percent away.

Whether the announced cut to the staking yield already plays a role in the price cannot be derived from the data; there is no official reason given for the daily loss. As an assessment one can say this: a yield falling from 5.4 to 3.5 percent makes delegating less attractive for pure yield seekers, while for holders it lowers the dilution of their share. Which of the two effects prevails will only show after the resolution, in how the staked amount develops.

Fixed Supply as a Distant Goal: What Phase 1 Leaves Open

Alongside the cut, the title of the motion names a "Path to a Fixed Supply", a road to a fixed total supply. That formulation describes a direction, not a resolution. What stands for a vote is phase 1 with the 1.6 percent, and not a ceiling on the model of Bitcoin's 21 million.

The difference matters considerably for any assessment. A fixed total supply would mean that at some point no new tokens come into existence and the validators have to be paid from transaction fees and other proceeds alone. Whether NEAR's fees would ever be enough for that is an open question the motion does not answer.

For you that means treating the 1.6 percent as the thing being decided, and the fixed total supply as a declaration of intent. Anyone arguing today for NEAR with a Bitcoin-like promise of scarcity is anticipating a step the stakers have not yet taken.

Staking Providers and Custody: What to Check as an Investor in Germany

No pressure to act follows from this news, but there is a handful of things that are easier to settle now than after the resolution.

Validator Fee and Choice of Provider

The smaller the gross reward, the more weight your validator's fee carries. Check which share your provider retains and whether it may change the terms unilaterally. The spread between providers is considerable here. The difference between delegating yourself from a wallet and a staking product from an exchange also matters: in the second case you hold a claim against a company rather than the tokens themselves.

Buying Route, Custody and Tax

If you want to buy NEAR, make sure the provider is authorised in the EU under the MiCA regulation; an authorisation is no seal of quality, but it governs duties and routes of complaint. Which houses come into question for the German market is set out in our overview of regulated crypto exchanges.

On tax, staking follows a different logic from a pure price gain: rewards accrue to you continuously and are to be recorded as other income in the year they arrive, while the one-year holding period applies to the sale of the tokens themselves. Anyone who delegates therefore needs a clean record of every distribution with its date and price. The legal position on crypto income is in motion, and patchy documentation can hardly be made good later. For the running record there are portfolio trackers with tax reporting; placing your individual case belongs with a tax adviser.

NEAR Issuance Cut: The Key Points for Your Decision

1. Look up your validator's yield. Note the gross yield and the fee your provider retains, and work both down to the future 3.5 percent. Where the fee is high, your position loses disproportionately. The terms of the providers are in our comparison of staking platforms.
2. Wait for the submission at House of Stake. Only with the formal phase 1 motion is the wording fixed that will be voted on. Until then the cut is a reasoned proposal, and reshuffling on the basis of a draft is a bet on the outcome. If you want to switch provider in the process, check the authorisation via our overview of crypto exchanges.
3. Set up the record of distributions. Hold on to every staking reward with its date and price while the yield still stands at 5.4 percent and the inflows are correspondingly numerous. The tax tools and portfolio trackers are there for that.

(As of October 3, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)