NEAR combines a horizontal scaling approach with a new consensus mechanism that splits the network into parallel shards and dynamically distributes the computation to increase the network's processing capacity. The NEAR protocol facilitates interoperability via the Rainbow Bridge to Ethereum and it deployed Aurora, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) implementation that allows developers to launch dApps built for Ethereum on the NEAR network. In summer 2022, it launched the possibility to write smart contracts using Javascript, thus enabling more than 20 million JS developers to build scalable Web3 dApps without having to learn a new language.

To stake NEAR with Bitcoin Suisse, a minimum amount of NEAR in the equivalent of CHF 10’000 is required. NEAR applies a 4-epoch lockup period according to the protocol specifications. This is an equivalent of approximately 2 days.