NEAR Governance Votes to End Developer Gas Rebates

The House of Stake has officially passed proposal HSP 027, bringing a significant change to how the NEAR protocol handles transaction fees. Under the new rules, the developer gas rebate program will come to an end. Previously, smart contract owners received a portion of the gas fees generated by their applications.

Going forward, all gas fees collected on the network will be burned. This move reduces the total supply of tokens, which is a common strategy used by blockchain projects to increase scarcity. NEAR co founder Illia Polosukhin confirmed the decision this week after the on chain vote concluded successfully.

This update is a major adjustment for developers who relied on those rebates to subsidize the costs of running their applications. Market watchers will now look to see how this impacts developer activity on the network. The shift suggests a priority on deflationary mechanics over direct incentives for contract owners.