Forum Post: Status Update Sept. 3rd 2025
Who is the NEAR Economics and Security Working Group?
We are a group of endorsed delegates with the mission to steward communication between the NEAR community, relevant stakeholders, and Gauntlet — focusing on the implications of a potential reduction of validator issuance on decentralization and validator sustainability.
Working group update Sept. 3rd
The NEAR Economics and Security Working Group has been meeting bi-weekly to discuss research on validator economics, network security, and how our working group can support HoS once it launches.
Our current focus
We have reviewed Gauntlet’s HoS 1.0 and HoS 2.0 proposals in detail and have compiled a list of questions for a Q&A session with them next week.
As a refresher:
- the scope of Gauntlet’s HoS 1.0 proposal is to launch the governance mechanism (veNEAR), transitioning NEAR to a stake-weighted governance model.
- the scope of Gauntlet’s HoS 2.0 proposal is to create a staking reward mechanism that competes effectively within the NEAR ecosystem.
After the Q&A session, we will share our discussion output with the community.
Alignment with Gauntlet’s HoS 2.0
Gauntlet’s 2.0 proposal is particularly aligned with this Working Group’s goals — especially our focus on ensuring NEAR is maximally decentralized by supporting smaller validators and strengthening validator sustainability.
Working Group Outputs
https://gov.near.org/t/network-economics-security-wg-near-token-issuance-survey-results/41464