NEAR Protocol (April 2026)

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Overall Verdict

Fundamentally, NEAR is one of the more interesting Layer-1 (L1) projects because, throughout 2025 and 2026, it moved away from the standard narrative of merely being a fast smart contract network. Instead, it has clearly positioned itself as the infrastructure for Chain Abstraction, cross-chain execution, and AI-native applications.

This is exactly where the project's strength lies. NEAR is no longer primarily trying