NEAR Protocol Validator Nodes

In the NEAR Protocol, validators are essential to maintaining the security, performance, and decentralization of the network.

Types of Consensus Validator Nodes

There are two main types of consensus validator nodes:

• Block Producers: The top 100 validators by total stake. They are responsible for producing blocks and also validating the chunks generated by other validators.

• Chunk Validators (Endorsement Producers): Validators responsible for validating chunks (portions of a block) but not producing blocks themselves.

Validator Statistics

The NEAR network currently supports up to 500 active validators — 100 Block Producers and 400 Chunk Validators — distributed across 8 shards under the Nightshade sharding architecture.

Rewards for Validators

Rewards for validators come from network inflation, currently at 2.5% annually. Of that, 90% is distributed to validators as staking rewards, while 10% goes to the NEAR treasury.

Each validator sets its own commission fee, which represents the percentage of staking rewards they keep in exchange for operating the node. Unlike other proof-of-stake networks, NEAR does not implement slashing, meaning validators do not lose funds for downtime or misbehavior — though they do lose delegation if performance is poor.

Seat Price

The seat price is dynamic, calculated based on the total amount of stake across the network. It represents the minimum stake required to enter the active validator set, but there is no maximum stake limit.