Glossary
NEAR Protocol
A sharded Layer-1 with an account-name system, asynchronous cross-shard messaging, and a developer-friendly Rust + JavaScript runtime.
NEAR is a Layer-1 designed around sharded execution: the network splits into multiple shards that process transactions in parallel, with cross-shard receipts handled asynchronously. Validators are assigned to shards by stake.
NEAR's runtime executes WebAssembly, which lets developers ship in
Rust, AssemblyScript, and (via guest runtimes) JavaScript. The chain
also bakes in human-readable account names (e.g. alice.near) and
account abstraction, simplifying the on-ramp for non-crypto-native
developers.