The City of Near

NEAR is a decentralized development platform built on top of the NEAR Protocol that supports smart contracts. Alexander Skidanov and Illia Polosukhin, two young computer scientists who had previously worked for industry giants Microsoft and Google, established the project in 2018.

NEAR is the next-generation proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain system, which employs the "Nightshade" sharding method for the segmentation of transaction computing burden and the preservation of full decentralization. On top of this technology, developers may design decentralized applications that are flexible, scalable, and user-friendly. As a base-layer blockchain, it provides the same infrastructure as projects such as Ethereum and EOS, allowing dApps and smart contracts to be rapidly presented to the public via the NEAR blockchain.

Purpose of this dashboard

Decentralization is the most important feature of the blockchain system. Decentralization is one of the words most frequently used in the field of blockchain, and even it is often viewed as a kind of blockchain itself. However it is also the word most difficult to define. Generally , the system is contrasted with centralization. The centralized system has one central point with status-deciding power. Decentralized systems require peer-to-peer consensus since no one can decide their status. A trust-less trust system doesn't require users to trust anyone. Users only need to trust the decentralized system. Decentralization is also connected to system reliability.

In this regard, this dashboard aims to show:

how centralized or decentralized is NEAR. To do so, some distinct measures of decentralization are selected that can be explored with on-chain data. These metrics are defined and outline how NEAR performs based on those metrics.
I also give an answer to this question that: In my view, is NEAR becoming more centralized or decentralized over time?

Why Near?

What are the most important reasons to pick NEAR?

Sustainability: The efficient PoS network was also certified as carbon-neutral by south pole in February 2021.
Cost Efficiency: 1000x lower transaction fees for users and 30% of transaction fees earned by developers.
Security: A flourishing ecosystem of validators ensures network integrity.
Simplicity: Human-readable wallets and account names bring broad adoption of near closer.
Community-oriented: NEAR has been able to build a robust community of Innovators, Creators, and Contributors, making it a very distinctive ecosystem. The majority of community members belong to a specific Guild. Each guild has a unique vision and mission for fostering a more accessible, interconnected, and consumer-empowered world. Everyone is welcome to join a Guild and can contribute to its growth by offering their skills and time.

Method

To give answers to the questions, this dashboard is going to examine and analyze the following key elements that can be considered as important measures of decentralization of a blockchain. These metrics are as follows:

Stakers
Validators
Block producers

Stakers

The highest number of stakes is for Apr 15, 2022 with total of 1003 stakers.

The total number of stakers is more (82,957 stakers) compared to the number of unstakers (34,598 unstakers). That is, the number of stakers is more than double compared to unstakers.

Validators

According to these graphs, we don’t see a considerable increase in the number of validators and blocks produced over time.

Block Producers

The highest number of staking actions is for Aug 31, 2022 with total of 27M staking actions.

Total number of staking actions is more (162,970,486) that that of unstaking actions (83,407,712). That is, the number of staking actions is almost double.

The highest number of staking transactions is for Apr 8, 2022 with total of 697 staking actions.

The number of block producers has increased from Jan 18, 2022 onward.
The block producer “staked.poolv1.near” has specified the highest share to itself (7.8%), followed by astro-stakers.poolv1.near (5.14%) and bisontrails.poolv1.near with 4.65% of total, respectively.
The total number of blocks produced is 31.29M.

Proof of Work (PoW)

Bitcoin's blockchain provided a way to confirm transactions and reach agreement and decisions. Miners confirm transactions by establishing a new block by solving challenging issues. If this block is right, other miners will approve the processes and outcomes of the task, and the network will establish a consensus. Proof-of-work is the most decentralized blockchain consensus technique. This approach has flaws, including sluggish transaction confirmation and excessive energy use. Another approach was developed.

Proof of Stake (PoS)

The weaknesses in the Bitcoin blockchain lead to the construction of a new decentralized consensus technique (due to the participation of users). This mechanism, abbreviated POW, eliminates the rivalry to produce a new block by locking the network's native token and allowing validators to construct blocks according to their power. This strategy reduces energy use and speeds up transaction confirmation.

The reason why POS is less decentralized than POW is that in the POW method, there are a large number of miners, and since more than 50% of the miners must agree to approve any decision in the Bitcoin blockchain, this power is divided among a large number of miners, and this network is very decentralized. In the POS method, the number of approvers is much less. Ultimately, this technique is decentralized. How? When blockchain validation is easy.

Conclusion

The highest number of staking actions is for Aug 31, 2022 with total of 27M staking actions. Total number of staking actions is more (162,970,486) that that of unstaking actions (83,407,712). That is, the number of staking actions is almost double.
The highest number of staking transactions is for Apr 8, 2022 with total of 697 staking actions.

The total number of staking transactions is more (101,494 transactions) than that of unstaking transactions (42,623). The is the number of staking transactions is more that double compared to unstaking actions. More percent of Near's activities are "staking" actions, and this trend has persisted for the previous nine months.

The highest number of stakes is for Apr 15, 2022 with total of 1003 stakers. The total number of stakers is more (82,957 stakers) compared to the number of unstakers (34,598 unstakers). That is, the number of stakers is more than double compared to unstakers.
According to these graphs, we don’t see a considerable increase in the number of validators and blocks produced over time. This is not good for the decentralization of this blockchain.
The number of block producers has increased from Jan 18, 2022 onward. The block producer “staked.poolv1.near” has specified the highest share to itself (7.8%), followed by astro-stakers.poolv1.near (5.14%) and bisontrails.poolv1.near with 4.65% of total, respectively. The total number of blocks produced is 31.29M.
Looking at the power distribution of validators by range, we can observe that over the past nine months, the top validators staking NEAR decreased .
The number of active validators of NEAR has decreased by almost 25% over the past week, and the number of activities, actors, and total volume of actions are all trending downwards. It can be concluded the current NEAR system is highly decentralized. The network cannot be taken over by any validator at this time. Half of all blocks are generated by a sizable fraction of the validators. To stake the centralized asset, users have not yet decided on a validator. Daily block count trends indicate that almost 100 validators are contributing to the network's decentralized nature. Based on what has been said, it is reasonable to conclude that near is decentralized.

References

The following dashboard was used as a reference to develop my dashboard:

(Thank you so much alik110)

Contact Info.

Twitter: @neginkh90

Discord: negin.kh#7590

Email: khallaghi.negin20@gmail.com

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