Time matters—whether it’s a single user waiting for a page to load or trillions of transactions moving through global commerce. In Web3, every millisecond counts. Faster speeds mean better UX, scalability, and security. That’s why the NEAR Protocol team has continued to raise the bar for blockchain performance. Thanks to the latest “optimistic block” implementation in Nightshade 2.0, NEAR Protocol now offers 600-millisecond block times and near-instant 1.2-second finality, setting a new standard in Web3 and offering a best-in-class environment for builders, AI agents, and decentralized applications.
Only NEAR Offers Real Speed With Real Finality
NEAR has always focused on delivering a seamless developer and user experience. With the introduction of “optimistic blocks,” NEAR Protocol now offers world-leading speed and finality, both of which are prerequisites for real-time AI execution and seamless UX across chains. In NEAR’s sharding design, each shard usually has to wait for a block before they can do their job. This update allows shards to act optimistically without waiting for block arrival. This reduces latency by 2x, enabling lightning-fast transaction processing.
“Blink and it’s final” isn’t an exaggeration: in the time it takes to blink, your NEAR transaction can finalize on-chain. This is about more than just speed, it also offers developers and end-users strong confidence in the network’s security and reliability. Builders no longer need to design around confirmations or delays—because there aren’t any.
While many networks promise fast speeds, NEAR delivers proven numbers on mainnet:
- 600-Millisecond Block Time: The time it takes for NEAR to produce a new block has been dramatically reduced, setting a new standard for high-performance blockchains. Thanks to NEAR’s Doomslug consensus, having one block built on top gives a substantial finality guarantee and a slashable malicious attack is required to revert the previous block. On Solana, by comparison, it takes 1.6 seconds (or 4 slots) for a block to be confirmed, and on fast L2s like MegaEth and Base, it takes at least 12 seconds to confirm a block (i.e. the time it takes to get included into an Ethereum block) and the confirmation in either case doesn’t offer a similarly strong finality guarantee.
- 1.2-Second Finality: Finality (i.e., the time required for a transaction to become irreversible) is now 1.2 seconds, which is 10x faster than Solana and over 600x faster than Ethereum and L2s.
Developers and users are often forced to compromise between speed and security when choosing a blockchain. But on NEAR, you can have both. By combining cutting-edge sharding, robust consensus mechanisms, and now optimistic block production, NEAR achieves a powerful trifecta:
- Blazing-fast Performance: Speed is essential for popular use cases like DeFi trading, gaming, and microtransactions.
- Secure Finality: Near-instant finality ensures minimal risk of transaction reversion—critical for enterprise-grade and real-world applications.
- Sustainable Scalability: With sharding and a continually evolving architecture, NEAR is built to scale without sacrificing performance.
Where other blockchains struggle with network congestion or face security trade-offs to achieve lower transaction times, NEAR’s holistic approach ensures stability and reliability.
AI Agents and Builders Can Now Create Real-Time, Composable Experiences
The emergence of AI-driven apps, autonomous agents, and complex decentralized systems alike all rely on near-instant transaction finality to function seamlessly in real-time environments. With NEAR’s swift block times and final confirmation, developers can have complete confidence in the execution of every smart contract call.
- Real-Time Composability: Build user experiences where multi-step transactions can finalize within seconds, enabling more interactive and seamless dApps.
- Autonomous Agents: AI agents can trigger on-chain actions and receive feedback almost instantly, paving the way for novel applications in finance, supply chain, and more.
- Confidence in Execution: Because finality is achieved in 1.2 seconds, developers can drastically reduce complexity around transaction confirmations, reorgs, and network delays.
The Future of Fast and Secure Blockchain Is Here
By delivering 600-millisecond block times and 1.2-second finality, NEAR Protocol is now one of the fastest blockchains in terms of real, secure finality. Whether you’re building a high-stakes DeFi application or exploring AI-driven autonomous agents, NEAR’s technology eliminates long wait times and ensures an unparalleled user experience. NEAR also doesn’t stop at 600-millisecond blocks. With the new innovations coming up to improve consensus and block production, NEAR is expected to get even shorter block times –– approximately 200 milliseconds –– by the end of 2025. Ready to build the future of Web3? The future is NEAR and it’s arriving in the blink of an eye. Dive into the world of NEAR apps and experience Web3-leading speed for yourself.
