Perhaps we could politely ask former NF COO and current NEAR Foundation board member Chris Donovan to stop selling his NEAR tokens monthly into the Binance order book — to have the Near success.
For context, this long-time “believer” has already withdrawn 858,655 NEAR over the past two years — that’s over $3.5 million at the average historical price.
Check his wallet: 31b5d8a227c99cf8f4ef843056d34664684171cfcb0578c648651c644fc2292d
I support the new proposal for more gradual changes. Also this would likely positively impact NEAR’s price, especially under current market conditions.
As for changing the quorum, I think the 66.6% requirement set originally was just unrealistic - that’s even higher than the voter turnout for US President election. Besides, there are lots of institutional investors/funds, exchanges like Binance/OKX and even certain validators just cannot vote due to legal and compliance reasons.
The lack of validator participation in the current one also proves that most of them are just not interested or can’t participate in governance, and hence a model like House of Stake would be beneficial in the long run. I mean if you don’t agree with the proposal, you can vote no?
Chorus one is inclined to vote “no” on the proposal to reduce NEAR inflation - below is our reasoning, and would be open to any community feedback:
Chorus One’s stance here is thoughtful and well-reasoned.
The key insight — that inflation cuts without a robust, organic economic base can do more harm than good — is often overlooked in these debates. Their point that NEAR’s LST penetration is still only ~1.1% highlights how early we are in DeFi development, and how fragile the validator ecosystem remains.
I also appreciate the data-driven humility in their position: Chorus references past work on inflation vs. TVL elasticity and openly admits the conclusions weren’t clear — which is precisely why large, irreversible moves based on vague intuition should concern us all.
Their emphasis on growing real activity — through liquid staking, usage incentives, and gradual, measurable steps — offers a more constructive path than a blunt-force cut.
In short, Chorus is showing exactly the kind of responsible, long-term alignment that fiduciaries and protocol stewards should aspire to. Glad to see this kind of leadership in the validator set.
@HOT_DAO , @NEAR_MAXi Public debate ? Conflict resolution gameplay 
I don’t recommend updating the proposal whilst voting is underway. We still have a week to go. Let’s wait for it to end and reassess if necessary.
I somewhat disagree with the revised quorum that’s being suggested here. I think the initial thresholds are very much achievable should we achieve broader consensus before jumping to an onchain vote.
You should be able to share links now 
Community have spoked, they don’t want to reduce the inflation.
Are you going to make new proposal until it will passed ?
Remove NF partner / pool with large delegation from NF
Let’s be honest — this part isn’t about improving governance at all:
“A proposal will pass if:
– 34% of total staked NEAR participates
– Of those, 67% must vote YES…”
This is HOT trying to retrofit the rules to push through a proposal that already failed. It’s procedural sleight of hand — rather than engage with the substantive objections raised by Everstake, Chorus One, and others, they’re proposing to change how votes are counted.
It’s clearly been written to reissue the same emissions cut — now just cosmetically stretched over a year — and to force it through via a governance rule change that wouldn’t have passed under the original framework. A proposal not to persuade the 62% who voted No or Abstained — but to override them.
That’s not reform. That’s trying to rewrite the rules because the outcome wasn’t what they wanted.
Sorry, I’m confused. @hotdao_ , can you please provide a summary of where we are in the inflation reduction voting process?
You posted the amendment below on Near Forum 9 days ago. Does this mean that we are still working off of the original proposal, just with a few tweaks? Or should we expect you to post a new, fresh proposal in the days ahead?
Related, does the new 21 day voting period begin 9 days ago or after you post the new, fresh proposal?
While I would love for this to simply get done, it’s a cleaner and more credible process if we allow the existing proposal to expire, and for you to immediately post a new, fresh proposal everyone can re-vote on. In addition to eliminating confusion around when the time clock began, it eliminates confusion around which proposal validators approved on the public dashboard (ie, we want all validators who voted “yes” to understand that the proposal has been updated, so they should ratify their first vote by approving again). I realize the dashboard is merely symbolic, but we also want the community at large to feel clear about it.
Finally, because this process has already been discussed thoroughly, I would consider shortening the voting period to 7 or 14 days to force urgency and efficiency. At this point, most validators have probably made up their minds, so unless there are minimum time requirements in Near’s broader governance practices, I think making the voting window relatively short is sufficient and practical.
As always, I encourage all validators to participate and express their views on Forum and X.
Rather than letting HOT repackage the same 50% cut (now just cosmetically stretched over a year), what if NF and NF adjacent teams proposed something more measured and consensus-driven:
• Linear reduction to 3% over 4 years - even BTC does their halvening over 4 years
• Annual review baked in, with the option to pause or gradually revert based on outcomes
• Buys time for NEAR to build real token sinks and avoids a sudden APY shock that could trigger mass unstaking or whale exits
• Treats the current APY as a feature, not a bug — allowing NEAR DeFi to grow around it via looping, leveraged yield, and other capital-efficient strategies as emissions taper down
• Signals narrative seriousness now, while giving room for proper modeling, second-order impact analysis, and real validator alignment
• Acknowledges, head-on, that the broader ecosystem isn’t yet developed enough to absorb a sharp cut with nowhere for potentially hundreds of millions of NEAR to go
This kind of compromise could be enough for many of the abstainers, show responsiveness to Chorus One, Everstake, and other thoughtful critiques — and avoid the bad optics of recycling a failed proposal while trying to change governance rules midflight.
This hits the 20/80: it wins the narrative, and buys time for more eventual rigor than HOT’s back-of-a-napkin draft — but without turning it into a PhD dissertation.
“In Support of the Governance Proposal — A Response to Concerns from Opponents”
Dear NEAR Community,
As governance evolves, it’s natural for thoughtful individuals to raise concerns and challenge new proposals. That’s how decentralized systems grow stronger. However, I believe the current governance proposal deserves our support, and I would like to address some of the key objections raised by its opponents.
Some argue that the existing system is “good enough” or “safer to keep.” But the reality is that:
Decision-making remains slow and fragmented
Community participation is minimal
There is little accountability for outcomes
Keeping things as they are is not a strategy — it’s avoidance. The challenges of the current system are well known. Ignoring them only delays progress and weakens NEAR’s ability to grow sustainably.
Opponents often frame the proposal as “too radical” or “premature.” That framing overlooks the months of discussions, feedback, and iterations that have shaped this design.
It includes checks and balances across stakeholder groups
It clarifies roles and decision-making processes
It introduces systems for accountability and transparency
This proposal reflects a deliberate, responsible step forward, not a blind leap.
Some fear that change might centralize power. But ironically, it is the current system that often leaves the community without a real voice.
This proposal empowers community delegates to participate meaningfully
It opens clear paths for grassroots involvement
It replaces vague influence with defined mechanisms and representation
If we want a governance model where community input truly matters, this is how we get there.
The most common objection is: “We’re not ready.” But change doesn’t happen when we’re fully ready — it happens when we begin moving.
No system is perfect from day one
Governance, like software, improves through iteration and feedback
Avoiding implementation due to fear of imperfection is how ecosystems fall behind
Let’s not confuse caution with complacency.
Conclusion: A vote for clarity, participation, and growthThis proposal won’t solve everything. But it brings us:
A clearer structure
Greater inclusivity
Accountability across roles
It moves NEAR from passive decentralization to active, participatory governance.
That’s why I’m voting YES — and I invite others to do the same.
Thank you.
The big issue is the lack of projects (DeFi, liquid staking) that could increase the number of transactions, offset the emission rate, and reduce its impact.
So, in my opinion, lowering this rate won’t make any difference, or at worst, it could drive away many people holding large amounts of NEAR because they would only receive 50% of the benefits.
Another major problem is that more than 30% of the staking power is concentrated in 10 large validators.
Then, there are over 250 very small validators for whom reducing the emission rate would be financially very harmful.
I think NF (Near Foundation) is making no effort to encourage these small validators, while NF and Metapool have millions of NEAR staked with the big validators… and nothing for the small ones.
I think this isn’t clean.
The top 10 nodes earn around $8,000 per day in rewards, while a small node ranked 100th or 150th barely makes $100 per month in rewards at the current price.
So I think this is the problem… this network isn’t very decentralized like people keep shouting everywhere, and there are lobbies (NF) who want things to stay this way for the benefit of a very small group.
It’s sad.
Hi @near_gogo
Welcome to the forum. Would be nice to mention which validator are you running on NEAR 
Firstly, I want to thank everyone here who was active, providing arguments pro or against the proposal. Thank you to validators who actually voted and expressed their opinion either on forum, TGs or X.
As we have seen the lack of participation and voting was a larger problem than substance of the proposal itself.
As vote came to conclusion, I want to reflect here and respond to some comments above.
1. I have previously experienced the challenges around validators participating in governance. We have clearly seen this again - with a number of validators explicitly avoided participating and when contacted confirmed that they can’t really vote either way due to their internal policy.
Near Digital Collective and House of Stake were originating from this understanding that a large set of validators are mostly service providers and not stake holders in the network.
2. As a person who designed current economic parameters I find the discourse quite ungrounded. The design had very different assumptions which have been invalidated since:
Overall I think we all have better understanding that gas is not the right measure of value of decentralized permissionless networks. Bitcoin has no burning gas but is highly valuable. Check out our discussion with Sam @ Frax.
Also some responses to comments:
This is incorrect. Currently ~71m NEAR in liquid staking => which is ~12% of staked NEAR.
Also this logic doesn’t make sense - high inflation rate limits LST adoption. And all of the other DeFi infra like NEAR <> LST pools or lending NEAR are highly undesirable with high inflation because you need to beat 1/2 of the inflation rate with fees to justify deploying liquidity there.
This doesn’t make sense. 9% yield that is perceived as “no risk” as it’s in-protocol staking is effectively removes any need for people to take any risks and in turn reduced velocity of the capital to 0.
Talking to many holders who we tried to onboard into liquid staking previously - they effectively not willing to move capital given the current state even to liquid staking as it requires taking additional smart contract risk.
Imagine US setting their US Treasury bill rate to 9% - there won’t be any investment happening in the country. Even current 5% have dampened the risk taking.
It’s been over 4 years since MainNet - exact time for halvening by this logic 
Metapool has been supporting small validators and is responsible for ~100 validators as far as I understand coming online in the past year. From small validators (launching a program to run validators for as low as $27/m) to institutional players like Vodafone and NTT.
That said adopting more focus on minimizing Gini coefficient of validators is a good idea - e.g. move stake more to the smaller stakers.
For context, we have been working with Metapool to develop the program around small validators.
Albeit doing another vote with changed inflation procedure as @HOT_DAO suggested is possible I don’t think it make sense.
Validators who wanted to vote have voted. From them we have a very conclusive 91% PRO and 9% AGAINST.
Also reminder that from mechanical perspective - this was Signaling not a binding vote. The actual binding change will need to be done by adopting a new version of Protocol by 80% of validators.
House of Stake looks like the right approach to actually have an ecosystem level vote going forward - where stake holders who are willing to lock their capital for long time are given disproportionally more weight in the decisions. House of Stake should vote on the inflation changes.
For the active members here - what would be the amount of stake locked (non NF obv) that would ratify the House of Stake in your eyes?
Metapool has indeed supported small validators by enabling over 100 new nodes to join the network last year — ranging from individual validators (with costs as low as $27/month) to institutional players like Vodafone or NTT.
However, this narrative needs to be seriously qualified — or even challenged.
The data speaks for itself: Metapool, Linear, and even the Near Foundation are delegating massive amounts of NEAR to the Top 30 validators, some of whom didn’t even participate in the vote.
It raises a real question: is this an attempt to stay politically correct? Because we need clarity on why entities like NF, Metapool, and Linear are staking millions of NEAR with the most powerful validators, while barely assigning 10,000 NEAR to smaller validators.
Moreover, it’s contradictory to talk about network decentralization while actively maintaining this level of concentration.
Yes, over 100 nodes were added a year ago — but in practice, the majority of stake continues to flow to the Top 30, and those small validators are largely ignored, understaked, and not meaningfully participating in consensus.
So why were 100 new nodes added, if the end result is still heavy centralization?
Right now, NF, Metapool, and Linear should be pushing toward decentralization, but in reality, they’re not.
A Concrete Example:
deutschetelekom.poolv1.near
Deutsche Telekom joined the NEAR network just two years ago, and yet they have already received 923,048 NEAR in stake from Metapool.
Meanwhile, smaller active validators — some of whom have been active for years — would never receive even 1/10 of that amount.
Why?
And let’s be honest — perhaps even you can’t do much about it. There are likely massive underlying interests, and possibly undisclosed agreements between major validators and NF+Linear+MetaPoll,
which force you (NF+Linear+MetaPoll) to delegate milllions to the Top 10 — under threat of exiting the project.
I’m not blaming you personally. But a bit more transparency around these dynamics would be appreciated.
Can you provide analysis on how 5% inflation is a high inflation rate benchmarked against other L1’s?
The reality of lowering the inflation rate is at the expense of validators. While MetaPool is a good standing contributor to the ecosystem the outlined program does not have enough incentive to keep smaller validators online which significantly risks decentralization ala the EOS scenario once more.
Stake is already highly concentrated in the network and there are outcries here that should be addressed regarding liquid staking providers and NF delegating to the high concentration impact.
% of stake locked to ratify the House of Stake should be proportional to the amount of stake delegated minus NF and Liquid Staking protocol internal holdings with a ratification of at least 35%.
finally, NEAR must be truly open. Reducing inflation to 2.5% may boost price action but risks decentralization by squeezing out smaller validators, like EOS.
NEAR is not comparable to bitcoin in any spectrum. lets avoid false primitives.
HoS must tackle entrenched issues like nepotism and top-down control that have long hindered NEAR’s potential. Decision-making cannot remain with the same gatekeepers.
While institutions are coming in they will not immediately make the ecosystem. there must be organic growth that is sustainable to succeed.
It’s time to empower new, talented founders and community leaders to drive innovation and adoption through killer apps and a vibrant ecosystem.
Would be good that you can give specific cases about this to provide an accurate explanation.
Meta Pool automatic algorithm looks for best performing validators on the active set. If your validator isn’t producing enough rewards this can be the reason.
Additional to that, consider that Meta Pool delegates 25% of their TVL via their governance-based delegation.
You can track all the validators delegation here, including voted and performance delegation: https://www.metapool.app/stakevote/
By the way, on the last PNOs program launched by Meta Pool there was a massive onboarding of 60 new validators that each one received 40,000 in delegation pushing the network to 300 validators (Actual limit).