- NEAR Protocol hits 46 million MAUs, becoming the second-largest Layer-1 blockchain after Solana.
- With Nightshade sharding and dApp growth, NEAR scales efficiently for high-performance applications.
- Despite token price setbacks, NEAR’s market activity shows growing interest and strong user adoption.
NEAR Protocol has achieved one big milestone, with 46 million monthly active users (MAUs) in May of 2025. This has been a massive milestone, and NEAR has become the second-largest Layer 1 blockchain, after Solana. The protocol has experienced high user activity that has surpassed some of the largest blockchain brands, such as Ethereum and Binance Chain.
Source: X
The NEAR protocol is safeguarded by a user-centric approach, which explains its expedited development. The protocol offers features such as account abstraction and chain signatures. Such innovations help increase the accessibility of the platform for both new and existing users. Moreover, its attractiveness to a larger audience is increased through the growing ecosystem of decentralized applications (dApps).
NEAR’s Nightshade Sharding Drives Web3 Scalability
The scalability of NEAR is Nightshade sharding technology. The scale of the operations that the protocol can perform without jeopardizing decentralization is enabled by this solution. The support of nightshade for high-performance applications is a changer. It has positioned NEAR in a way that will make it a force in the Web3 ecosystem, particularly within industries such as gaming and blockchain social applications.
The protocol has also experienced high market activity. Conglass showed that the Open Interest of NEAR rose by 8.72%, to $247.06 million. Such an increase in market activity is a definitive sign of growing interest in the protocol as both an investment and development platform. The increasing number of users and market presence indicate that NEAR is making a substantial presence in the blockchain.
Near Protocol Struggles Despite Growing User Base
Nevertheless, NEAR protocol has encountered some setbacks when it comes to the price of its native token. As of now, the token is changing hands at a price of $2.37, representing a 6.30% decrease in the last 24 hours. However, with the increasing number of users, the token is presently trading lower than both its 50- and 100-day exponential moving averages (EMAs), which shows that the market trend is bearish.
Source: TradingView
Technically, the level of support of NEAR is at $2.20. If the token be able to hold this level, a price recovery is possible. An increase might drive the price of NEAR to $3.20 and even $4.20. Nevertheless, in case the support is violated, the further price falls might occur.
Scalability and user-oriented infrastructure NEAR is an attractive choice of developers and investors. With an increasingly high competition rate in the Layer-1 blockchain environment, NEAR’s developments have kept it in the competition.
Read More: Bitcoin and Ethereum’s Resilience in Q2 Sets Stage for Continued Growth in 2025