NEAR Protocol is having a speed moment. In a new feature, Forklog reports that NEAR has halved its block time to 600 milliseconds, delivering ~1.2-second finality—and is aiming next for 200ms blocks. The article quotes NEAR leadership asserting this is ~10× faster than Solana (historically) and ~300× faster than Ethereum finality. That’s a headline-grabber, but what’s under the hood—and how does it stack up across chains that are also evolving fast? Below, we break down NEAR’s 2025 upgrades, compare them with current Ethereum and Solana baselines, and flag what to watch next for builders and users.
How NEAR Got Here: Nightshade 2.0, Shards & Stateless Validation
NEAR’s scaling story blends parallel sharding (Nightshade) with steady client upgrades:
- Nightshade 2.0 & 600ms blocks. Cutting slot time to 600ms shortened the path to finality (~1.2s), a major UX win for wallets, dapps, and AI “agent” use cases that need near-instant confirmation.
- More shards (now nine). Adding shards increases total compute without forcing validators to run heavy hardware—key for decentralization and global accessibility. (Forklog notes NEAR aims to stay runnable on ordinary machines.)
- Stateless validation. 2025 rollouts reduced on-node state storage needs by ~70% for validators, widening the pool of potential operators and helping the network scale without centralizing hardware.
The upshot: higher throughput, faster finality, and a lower barrier to participate.
Cross-Chain UX: Chain Signatures, Intents & Abstraction
Speed alone doesn’t win. NEAR’s 2025 roadmap leans into cross-chain simplicity:
- Chain Signatures let one NEAR account control assets on other chains—a step toward “chain abstraction” (fewer seed phrases, fewer hops). NEAR’s posts show how this improves liquidity flows and user experience across ecosystems.
- Relayer SDKs & omnibridges. Grants and RFPs target chain-abstracted relayers so apps/wallets can route actions across chains without exposing users to bridge complexity. Messari’s Q1 report also notes OmniBridge launching on Chain Signatures.
Together with sub-second finality, these pieces position NEAR as a responsive hub for multi-chain apps.
Is NEAR Really 300× Faster than Ethereum?
It depends what you measure:
- Ethereum finality today: Under current consensus, checkpoint finality typically arrives after ~2 epochs (~12.8 minutes) in normal conditions. Multiple reputable docs explain this 2-epoch finality rhythm.
- NEAR finality now: ~1.2 seconds.
Using those numbers, comparing 12.8 minutes (≈768s) to 1.2s implies a ~640× difference. Forklog’s “~300×” claim is thus plausible and even conservative, depending on which Ethereum finality milestone you pick. The nuance: Ethereum is actively researching “single-slot finality” to slash that 12.8-minute lag in the future, but it’s not here yet.
Bottom line: As of today, NEAR’s finality is orders of magnitude faster than Ethereum’s finalized state—one reason app patterns (like micopayments or agentic workflows) feel snappier on NEAR.
What About Solana?
Historically, Solana confirmations and finality have been measured in single-digit seconds (5–12s ranges commonly cited in research and docs). Against that backdrop, NEAR’s ~1.2s is indeed around 10× faster.
However, Solana is mid-upgrade: the community just approved the Alpenglow roadmap, which targets ~150ms finality (via “Votor”), potentially rolling out by late 2025 into 2026. If/when that lands, Solana’s finality could undercut NEAR’s current 1.2s. For now, NEAR’s advantage is live; Solana’s next leap is on the way.
Throughput Claims: TPS, Real-World Load & Shards
Speed is more than finality—throughput matters:
- Neutral dashboards (e.g., Chainspect) consistently show NEAR near the top pack and far above Ethereum on theoretical and realized TPS, thanks to sharding. Still, “theoretical TPS” is not the same as real app throughput; look to live dashboards during peak usage for apples-to-apples.
- Some third-party posts cite 600ms blocks and “thousands of TPS in tests” on NEAR; treat marketing-adjacent numbers with caution and verify using explorers and independent monitors during real traffic spikes.
Key takeaway: NEAR’s architecture—short slots plus sharding—puts it among the faster L1s by design. But developers should still profile their workloads (state writes, account model quirks, storage I/O) before assuming headline TPS.
Why This Matters for Builders and Users
- UX & retention. Sub-second confirmations reduce drop-offs at checkout, mints, or on-chain game moves. If you’re shipping consumer apps, human-perceptible latency matters. NEAR’s 1.2s finality is a tangible UX win today.
- Validator inclusivity. Stateless validation and modest hardware requirements can help decentralization as the network scales. More shards without super-nodes is the goal.
- Multi-chain simplicity. Chain Signatures and chain-abstracted relayers shrink the cognitive load of bridging. That’s good for risk and onboarding.
What to Watch Next
- NEAR’s 200ms goal. Forklog notes a target to push blocks from 600ms toward 200ms. Hitting that would extend NEAR’s real-world speed edge—unless rivals land their upgrades first.
- Chain abstraction rollouts. Expect more grants and SDKs to make “pick any chain, one account” a consumer reality on NEAR.
- Ethereum’s consensus roadmap. Work on single-slot finality aims to trim the 12.8-minute wait dramatically, with major downstream implications for L2s and bridging.
Final Verdict: A Real Speed Win
NEAR’s 2025 upgrades deliver measurable, shipped performance: 600ms blocks and ~1.2-second finality are live, not hypothetical, and sharding continues to scale capacity without raising hardware walls. Against Ethereum’s present-day ~12.8-minute finality, the “~300× faster” framing is defensible; against Solana’s historical ~5–12 seconds, “~10× faster” also checks out—for now.
But this leaderboard is dynamic. Solana’s Alpenglow seeks 150ms finality; Ethereum’s researchers are pushing toward single-slot designs. NEAR, Solana, and Ethereum are converging on lower latency from different design philosophies. For builders, the practical advice is simple: test your app’s flows on live networks, watch the upgrade timelines, and prioritize the chain that delivers the latency, tooling, and reliability your users actually feel.