This report presents an analysis of validators on the NEAR Protocol in relation to NEAR's upcoming collaboration with Alibaba Cloud which will make it easier for user to spin up NEAR validator nodes [1]. Specifically, the report shows the growth in the number of validators over time, trends in staking, and adoption of liquid staking solutions.

The main goal of this dashboard is to outline an analysis and provide insights on NEAR validators and staking. As such, the commentary provided describe results and metrics at the time of writing (July 3, 2023). Nonetheless, it is still possible to refresh the dashboard to view the latest metrics like any other interactive dashboard.

This report was authored by @rmas and contributed to MetricsDAO and to the community in general. Feel free to fork and reference the source code behind the charts. Also, reach out on Twitter if you have any questions or would like to collaborate.

Image source: The Coin Republic

Data Sources

This report primarily uses Flipside's NEAR tables for all charts and statistics. Specific on-chain data points were extracted as described below:

• Validator staked balances. Sourced from Flipside's new fact_staking_pool_daily_balances table.
• Delegator staked balances. Extracted from staking transaction logs from near.core.fact_receipts.
• Seat price. Derived from a simulation of NEAR's validator selection algorithm.
• LSD token transfers. Extracted from receipts generated by transactions received by token contracts.

For accuracy checking purposes, the following external information sources were also used:

• NEAR Explorer. Validator and staking stats
• NearBlocks. Token supply and account balances (using contract calls)
• DefiLlama. DeFi protocol TVLs

Metrics

The following metrics have been used to present the developments related to validators on NEAR:

• Number of validators. Used to measure the number of active participants in securing and operating the NEAR ecosystem. The more validators, the more decentralized NEAR is.
• Total Stake. The total number of NEAR tokens staked to secure the network.
• Staking Ratio. The percentage of the total NEAR supply that is staked. This metric inversely affects the staking rewards rate (APR).
• Staking APR. Refers to "Annual Percentage Rate" which is measure of staking rewards. On NEAR, this comes from protocol inflation that is used to reward validators for producing blocks which are then distributed to active stakers with a corresponding fee %.
• LSD Liquidity. This refers to the balance of Liquid Staking Derivative (LSD) tokens held in DeFi protocols. It is a measure of utilization of LSDs across the DeFi ecosystem of NEAR.
• LSD Volume. The aggregated amount of LSD tokens moved between accounts for specific on-chain actions, e.g. transfers, swaps, borrows.
• LSD Active Accounts. The total number of unique wallets or accounts which send or receive LSD tokens.

This report builds upon previous related work by the same author. Check them out for additional insights.

1. @rmas, NEAR Token Supply. Locked, Staked, & Liquid, 18 April 2023.
2. @rmas, The Decentralization of NEAR, 8 May 2023.