NEAR blockchain’s on-chain governance system – House of Stake – recently passed HSP-027, effectively redirecting all execution fees to a protocol burn mechanism, bringing to an end a 30 percent discount.
NEAR eliminates developer rebate
By doing away entirely with developer gas rebate, every eligible execution fee on the NEAR blockchain will be burned instead of partially returned to the owners of the smart-contract. The change is expected to take effect with a nearcore update around August 2026.
Illia Polosukhin, co-founder of NEAR confirmed the approval of HSP-027, supporting the shift toward full fee burns. Polosukhin added that it’s a right move for NEAR’s long-term tokenomics.
To explain in simple words, smart-contract owners can reclaim the 30 percent developer gas discount to earn a portion of the gas fees their contracts created. Notably, the average rebate per smart contract has plunged from around 27.6 NEAR in June 2025 to as low as 2.5 NEAR in July 2026.
Anton Astafiev, the author of HSP-027 opined that the discount had diluted so much that there was no point in carrying it anymore. During the NEAR discussion forum, there was no major opposition recorded.
As the nearcore v2.14 upgrade rolls out in August 2026, the aforementioned proposal is expected to be implemented. Essentially, the rollout of the new upgrade will permanently remove the relevant quantity of NEAR tokens from circulation.
The proposal has implications for both the developers and investors. If a decentralized application (dApp) was accounting for gas discounts as any part of its revenue model, it will no longer be relevant once nearcore v2.14 upgrade goes live.
From a trading perspective, analysts are leaning bullish. Crypto trader SUNCOAST predicted that NEAR is ready for a breakout. The analyst shared the following daily chart, adding that NEAR is showing a textbook breakout from a falling wedge pattern.
Will NEAR go on a bullish rally?
On Friday, NEAR barely avoided a breakdown below $1.90, with analysts projecting the token to run to $25 in the medium-term. NEAR has benefitted from a flurry of bullish developments over the past few months, including the dynamic sharding upgrade in May 22.
That said, some concerning signs are starting to emerge. On June 4, crypto entrepreneur Arthur Hayes sold his entire NEAR stake, saying that it’s not the best time to be holding altcoins.
