On August 10, NEAR Protocol’s native token saw a significant increase of 11%. This hike came in the wake of Coinbase’s announcement that it would add NEAR Protocol to its listings on Twitter.

NEAR Protocol, established in 2020, is a blockchain network that operates using a proof-of-stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. It also implements sharding to enhance scalability and supports the development of decentralised applications (DApps).

Coinbase has encountered challenges recently; this week, it disclosed that its staking services and crypto yields are under investigation by the SEC. Additionally, the company reported a loss of $1.1 billion in the second quarter.

Earlier this year, NEAR Protocol had uncovered a security breach from June 2022, which could have exposed sensitive data to third parties.

In contrast, Ethereum attracted a surge of investment following its announcement of a merger with the Ethereum 2.0 Beacon Chain, planned for September 2022. This transition aims to shift from proof-of-work (PoW) to proof-of-stake (PoS), enhancing network efficiency and reducing carbon emissions.

Currently, NEAR Protocol competes with Ethereum in offering a smart-contract capable, PoS blockchain platform. The NEAR token serves as the native currency for transactions and storage on the NEAR crypto platform. Tokenholders can also stake their tokens to validate transactions and contribute to network consensus.

NEAR was created by the NeaCollective with a mission to build a community-run cloud computing platform, supporting decentralised applications (DApps). This project employs sharding technology—a database partitioning technique—to enhance transaction throughput by dividing the blockchain into manageable segments. By reducing computational load and increasing transaction capacity, NEAR Protocol aims to compete effectively in the blockchain space.