Near Protocol is a decentralized application platform that enables the development of fast and scalable dApps. It uses an innovative sharding technology to achieve high transaction throughput and low latency. Near Protocol is also optimized for security, with a number of features that make it resistant to common attacks such as 51% attacks and double-spending.
The main utility of Near Protocol is its compatibility with Ethereum smart contracts. This means that developers can easily port their Ethereum dApps over to Near, taking advantage of its superior performance without having to rewrite their code from scratch.
Near native token, called NEAR, is used to pay for transaction fees on the network. It is also required to stake in order to become a validator node and earn rewards. The total supply of NEAR is capped at 1 billion tokens. The token has a market capitalization of over $3 billion.