NEAR validators verify blocks without keeping a copy of the chain's state

On most blockchains, validators carry a heavy load. To check that a block is valid, they must maintain a full, up-to-date copy of the chain's state, meaning every account, balance, and contract stored on the network. As a chain grows, so does that burden, gradually raising the cost of running a node and pushing out smaller participants.

@NEARProtocol takes a different approach. Each block on NEAR carries a state witness: a compact cryptographic proof containing only the data required to validate that specific block. A validator can check work on a shard without ever storing that shard's full state.

How Stateless Validation Works in Practice

The practical result is a sharp reduction in hardware requirements. NEAR's top 100 validators, which both produce blocks and track a shard, operate on roughly 48GB of memory. Those below that threshold run a lighter checking role on just 8 to 16GB.

Stateless validation arrived with Nightshade 2.0, which went live on NEAR mainnet in August 2024. According to The Defiant, the upgrade was designed to speed up transaction execution by 400% and increase the network's shard capacity.

What Has Changed Since, and What Comes Next

The protocol has not stood still since Nightshade 2.0. The v2.13 upgrade landed on mainnet on July 20, 2026, adding two significant capabilities. First, dynamic resharding: the network can now automatically split shards when they reach a capacity threshold, without requiring a validator vote or a manual protocol upgrade. Second, post-quantum signing: NEAR activated the FIPS-204 standard using the ML-DSA-65 parameter set.

It is important to note that the migration is opt-in. Ed25519 and secp256k1 signing remain in place, and users can rotate their keys to ML-DSA-65 through a single on-chain transaction via the NEAR CLI, with no need to move assets or change account addresses. The reason NEAR kept the switch voluntary is a practical one: ML-DSA keys and signatures are substantially larger than elliptic-curve equivalents, which raises storage and processing demands. NEAR's official press release described the deployment as placing it among the first major Layer-1 blockchains to ship a NIST-approved quantum-resistant signature scheme in a live production environment.

Looking further ahead, SPICE (Separation of Consensus and Execution) is the next major upgrade on the roadmap toward Nightshade 3.0, which is already in progress. SPICE decouples the process of validators agreeing on block order from the execution of transactions inside those blocks, targeting block times of 200ms and sub-half-second finality.

Together, these upgrades form a coherent technical arc: reduce validator storage requirements, automate capacity scaling, harden cryptographic security, and compress latency, each layer building on the last.

Sources:
NEAR Protocol: Nightshade 2.0 Launches on NEAR Mainnet
PR Newswire: NEAR Protocol Brings Quantum-Safe Signing to Mainnet
eGamers: NEAR Goes Live With Post-Quantum Signatures On Mainnet Via 2.13 Release