Key points:
- Protocol funding replaces discretionary grants. HSP-007 funds NEAR’s MPC nodes from protocol emissions through a transparent mechanism, approved by House of Stake and accountable to NEAR token holders.
- Rewarded for performance, reported in public. Operators are rewarded monthly in arrears, forfeit rewards for missed uptime, and every payment and SLA result is reported publicly each month.
- Built to increase decentralization. The program can fund up to 21 nodes, with 17 in operation today, and any change to the operator set requires an onchain vote.
- Durable infrastructure for the cross-chain economy. Chain Signatures signs for NEAR Intents, which has processed $30B+ in cross-chain volume. Protocol-driven incentives means the assets moving across chains rely on signing infrastructure that no longer depends on a grant cycle.
NEAR’s Multi-Party Computation (MPC) network now runs on 17 live mainnet operators, funded by the Protocol. HSP-007, approved by House of Stake, moves MPC node operations from discretionary grants to a standing program paid from Protocol emissions and governed by NEAR token holders. The approval is a vote of confidence in Chain Signatures and NEAR Intents as long-term, industry-wide infrastructure, and it marks the network’s shift from bootstrapped incentives to economic sustainability and increasingly decentralized architecture.
Every cross-chain system has to answer who pays to keep its signing infrastructure running. HSP-007 answers that at the Protocol level, with incentives tied to delivered performance and reported publicly each month. The full proposal text is on GitHub, and the MPC node implementation is open source at near/mpc.
The Cross-Chain Signing Layer Under NEAR Intents
Chain Signatures lets a NEAR account natively sign transactions on other chains, and no single party ever holds the private key. Multi-party computation splits each signing key across independent node operators. Key shares are created through distributed key generation with no trusted dealer, and a signature is valid only when a threshold of operators cooperate.
The network signs for Bitcoin, Ethereum and EVM chains, Solana, and other networks, which makes it the signing layer behind NEAR Intents. NEAR Intents has processed over $30 billion in cross-chain volume, and virtually all BTC and Solana cross-chain flow now moves through the MPC-powered Omnibridge.
Early MPC operators, supported by grant funding, helped bring Chain Signatures into production. Grants are discretionary and time-limited by design. HSP-007 now helps ensure that infrastructure of this scale has a sustainable funding model, one that operators can plan around and token holders can audit.
How the Incentive Program Works
HSP-007 is a holistic program that defines where funding for MPC nodes comes from, how payments are calculated, how performance is enforced, and who governs it. This approach is designed to reduce follow-up decisions and discretionary approval.
- Funded from Protocol emissions. Each month, calculated rewards move from the Protocol treasury to operators.
- Paid for delivered service. Operators are paid monthly in arrears. A node that falls below its uptime requirement forfeits part or all of that month's rewards.
- Peer-enforced. Any participating operator can challenge another's uptime on the House of Stake governance forum.
- Capped. Payments are bounded per node and across the program, including a cap that limits spend if the NEAR price rises.
- Public. Eligible nodes, SLA results, payments, and challenges are reported monthly in House of Stake proposal updates.
- Durable. The program renews each term unless token holders vote to change it. Near One leads a public annual review of costs, operator sustainability, and performance.
Full parameters are in the HSP-007 proposal.
What This Means for MPC Node Operators
The program replaces grant cycles with a published rule set. Funding follows a fixed formula, and performance is the gate. HSP-007 can fund up to 21 nodes without changing per-node terms, which gives the network room to grow its operator set.
Mainnet operators include Astrostakers, Aurora, Bitwise, Blacksand, Everstake, Greenfield, HashKey Cloud, Klever, Luganodes, MPCH, Nansen, Natsai, Near One, Node Monster, Stakin (The TIE), Staking4all, and SVRN. The live operator set is public at https://mpc.nearone.org/.
“Every transaction that settles through NEAR Intents depends on Chain Signatures and the MPC network. As Intents volume grows, that network has become critical infrastructure for anyone moving assets across chains. This requires sustainable funding that operators can plan around. HSP-007 gives the MPC nodes that funding through governance, measures them on uptime, and reports their performance publicly every month. House of Stake is where token holders make that decision and hold the network to it. That gives operators the confidence to commit for the long term, and it gives builders a signing layer they can rely on.”
—Sal Ternullo, CEO, SVRN, and co-author of HSP-007
Decentralization You Can Verify Onchain
Adding or removing an MPC operator, changing the signing threshold, and even updating the running code requires an onchain vote by the existing operators. No single party can change the network alone. Signing continues as long as a threshold of 11/17 operators is available, and the network is smart enough to detect offline nodes and route signing requests around it without any impact. Every mainnet operator runs on bare metal to ensure network resilience. Trail of Bits has independently audited each core component of the network, from the Chain Signatures contract and its distributed key generation protocol to the threshold signing and key derivation schemes. The reports are public on GitHub.
The participant set and threshold are public. Query the state method of the v1.signer contract on NEAR mainnet:
near contract call-function as-read-only v1.signer \
state json-args {} network-config mainnet nowOr call state on v1.signer in NearBlocks. The network and security overview shows the live operator set alongside how the threshold and TEE protections work. Builders who want to sign across chains from their own apps can start with the Chain Signatures docs.
What Comes Next
Monthly reports will track uptime and payments, Near One’s annual review will test the program’s cost assumptions, and capacity for up to 21 operators gives the network room to decentralize further. For NEAR Intents and the cross-chain flow it supports, HSP-007 helps ensure signing infrastructure with a funding model built for the long run.
