🚨 OutLayer unlocks a new execution model

Smart contracts can run off-chain compute inside a single on-chain transaction. TEE execution, external APIs and ML models all work natively, without servers or SDK integrations.

👉 Read the full thread

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🚨 Leo now runs through NEAR AI TEE

Brave now runs LLM inference inside a trusted execution environment with verifiable privacy. A straightforward example of TEE powered AI compute reaching the browser layer.

A short technical breakdown is here 👈

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Multichain dev work often feels like assembling a LEGO set with missing parts

NEAR Chain Abstraction fixes the model: the account stays on NEAR while execution and authorization can operate across different chains without extra keys, networks or wallets ⛓️

➡️ NEAR Intents define the goal.
➡️ NEAR Account provides identity.
➡️ Chain Signatures authorize cross-chain actions.
➡️ OmniBridge verifies and moves assets.

Execution happens on the target chain, while the account and authorization stay anchored on NEAR ⛓️‍💥

The full architecture is mapped out here, finally without the missing parts: https://docs.near.org/chain-abstraction/what-is

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BUIDL AI Hackathon 2026 🦄

From January 9 – 11 in Lisbon, builders will spend 48 hours creating real AI agents and experimenting with new tooling. The event is hybrid: you can join remotely, but each team needs at least one person on-site.

Tracks, bounties, technical kits and mentors are coming to help teams turn a weekend idea into a working prototype. This is the kind of hackathon where you don’t just talk about AI, you ship something tangible by Monday 👨‍💻

🔗 Details and registration

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[Never underestimate a quick question] (the value shows up fast)

Sometimes a simple question in the community chat surfaces details you don’t notice at first glance.

In this case:
The chat revealed how NEAR handles transaction validity and how flexible Chain Signature paths can be. A long validity window and adaptable string-based derivation paths give builders room to design async and cross chain flows without friction ✅

And the best part is how naturally it surfaced. One brief exchange revealed a detail that can shape real application design.

It’s a good reminder that protocol decisions become clearer when you see them discussed in practice, and the fastest way to understand how these mechanics behave is simply to ask the community 💬

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🏊‍♀️ Rust tooling on NEAR received a focused cleanup

near-sdk-rs 5.18.0, contract-standards 5.18.0 and borsh-rs 1.6.0 shipped this week and bring more consistency across the SDK, standards and serialization layer 👨‍💻

The updates address familiar friction points in contract development:
➡️cleaner promise flows
➡️more predictable event logging
➡️more reliable FT and NFT callbacks
➡️stricter and safer serialization behavior

Nothing disruptive. This is targeted refinement that removes small issues developers often work around.

The focus is on quality of life improvements with no compromise on security. Less code you need to write means fewer bugs you will hit ✅

Release notes: SDK, Standards and Borsh.

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[Never overlook the foundations] (they shape everything on top)

Off-chain tooling doesn’t get the spotlight often, yet it quietly determines how smooth the entire developer experience feels 🏌️‍♀️

Right now a lot of effort is going into polishing the OpenAPI spec for nearcore. This work is what enables consistent client libraries across TypeScript, Kotlin, Swift and Rust, and the results are already visible in the expanding suite of low-level JSON-RPC clients.

In parallel the high-level libraries are evolving fast. near-api-rs is approaching its 1.x release with major projects already using it in tests, and the NEAR CLI is being refactored to run on top of it. The TypeScript library is gathering feedback as well, including work on a React adapter and HOT integration 🧗‍♀️

It’s the kind of infrastructure most people don’t think about until they actually use it. When the client tooling is clean and consistent, building on NEAR becomes simpler across the board. And the work happening now is setting that direction for the long run.

Build on NEAR with tooling that actually supports you ✅

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Think building in crypto is complicated? It’s really not.

The easiest way to get started without pressure is to use these 2 resources:

1. NEAR Quests
Short interactive steps that break the basics down into something anyone can follow. You get a real feel for how NEAR works without drowning in theory.

2. Near Protocol Developer on YouTube
Clear, practical walkthroughs. Real smart contracts. Real Rust patterns. Watching someone build removes half the confusion instantly.

⏳ Both are simple to try and don’t require a big time commitment.

You don’t need everything figured out before starting.
Take a small step and progress will follow ✅

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🌐 NEAR AI is live

NEAR introduces an execution layer for AI where privacy and verification come from secure hardware. Inference runs inside Intel TDX and NVIDIA Confidential Computing, keeping data sealed and returning a cryptographic attestation with every request.

On this foundation comes NEAR Private Chat, showing how private AI can work in a consumer interface with the same confidentiality guarantees used in enterprise environments 💬

At launch, Brave Nightly, OpenMind and Phala are already running on NEAR AI Cloud, bringing hardware-verified private AI to millions of users.

Read more details here 🔗

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Help improve the NEAR Treasury experience

The team is updating the NEAR Treasury design and wants to understand how real users interact with it 🏌️‍♀️

Even a short response can highlight something meaningful:
⚪️ a confusing moment
⚪️ an extra click
⚪️ a step that could feel more intuitive

Your perspective matters, whether you use NEAR Treasury or similar tools. If you can spare a minute, here is the form 🔗

And thanks in advance for helping make NEAR Treasury better for everyone ❤️

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Your Data Can and Will Be Used Against You — by Illia Polosukhin

Why our online behavior isn’t as harmless as it feels and why today’s data model is riskier than it looks 💬

Illia breaks down how:
🟢 “Free” platforms turn activity into behavioral profiles
🟢 Centralized data creates structural, long-term risks
🟢 Small digital traces compound into real influence
🟢 The future depends on user-owned, privacy-preserving AI

A sharp look at the fork we’re facing and what it means for the role AI will play in our lives 🧠

🔖 Read the full piece & subscribe

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Rust Smart Contracts on NEAR — Gas Optimization 🦀

Gas decides how heavy your contract feels ⛽️
This lesson walks through common patterns that increase gas usage on NEAR and shows practical ways to make contract execution more efficient.

If you want to understand what actually affects gas costs and how to reduce them, this episode covers the essentials 💯

📺 Watch the lesson here
👨‍💻 Code examples

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AI native travel is landing on NEAR ✈️

ADI Chain teamed up with NEAR Protocol to power TravAI, an autonomous travel manager that can
⚪️ book flights
⚪️ find hotels
⚪️ build itineraries
⚪️ handle payments
⚪️ settle everything transparently on L2
…making the whole flow practical rather than experimental.

And the timing could not be better.

NEARCON 2026 takes place this coming February in San Francisco.
If the public launch happens soon, planning the trip with TravAI could become one of the first real use cases ✅

Plan. Travel. Arrive.

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Sometimes a small moment sets something bigger in motion.

@vlmoon99’s first encounter with NEAR at a Rust conference was exactly that: a quick wallet creation, a bit of curiosity and a small spark that didn’t look important at the time 🏊‍♂️

That spark led him deeper into how NEAR works, into the architecture, the execution model and everything behind the clean developer experience. Step by step it turned curiosity into contribution, eventually leading to near-sdk-c-sharp, a toolkit that opens the ecosystem to the .NET community.

It is a simple reminder that meaningful things in NEAR often start quietly. Small steps grow into work that expands what the whole ecosystem can do ✅

You can watch the full live session with the discussion and demo here 📺

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✉️ NEAR Dev News #82 — The November Issue

From NEAR Town Hall to private AI and the road to NEARCON 2026, here’s what shaped NEAR this month.

Here’s the rundown:
✅ Brave’s Leo now runs through NEAR AI
✅ NEAR Intents adoption continues to grow
✅ HOT Wallet Connector streamlines cross-app authentication
✅ OutLayer pushes smart contracts further
✅ SovereignAI treasury reaches 53.9M NEAR
✅ NEAR Quests now live
✅ NEARCON 2026 announced for San Francisco
… and more inside the full issue.

🔗 Read the full & subscribe: https://docs.near.org/newsletter
🔖 Explore active freelancing opportunities: https://nearn.io/

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From theory to deploying an NFT Global Contract

Episode 4 shows how Global Contracts are taken from theory to an actual on-chain deployment as part of the NEAR Merch Store Project 👨‍💻

This is a focused highlights cut.
The full context lives in the live sessions.

👉 See what they built

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Where the NEAR Rabbit Hole begins

NEAR Rabbit Hole is a long-form series that breaks down the NEAR Protocol step by step, focusing on how the stack actually works rather than surface-level explanations 🐇

Episode 1 sets the foundation, covering NEAR’s architecture, performance, sharding, NEAR Intents and developer experience, and sets up the deeper dives ahead.

NEAR Rabbit Hole, Episode 1. Watch here 📺

Sponsored through NEARN as part of the Public Goods for NEAR Protocol sponsorship.

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Rust Smart Contracts on NEAR — Token 🦀

This lesson walks through a practical implementation of a NEAR fungible token in Rust, based on the NEP-141 standard, with a custom whitelist mechanism layered on top of it.

The video also highlights alternative ways to create FT on NEAR, including a simple option and an ERC-20-like approach 💥

📺 Watch the lesson here
🏊‍♀️ Code examples

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🏊‍♀️ Recent updates across NEAR’s Rust tooling

Several core Rust tools shipped new releases over the past two weeks, bringing practical improvements across indexers, local testing, smart contracts and CLI workflows 👨‍💻

What changed:
➡️Lake framework aligned with latest nearcore crates
➡️More reliable sandbox with cleaner shutdowns
➡️Faster near-sdk-rs iteration with new protocol support and better APIs
➡️near-cli-rs updates with refreshed UI and MPC signing

With these updates, tooling becomes more predictable, with fewer workarounds and a smoother developer experience ✅

You can also check out the thread for more details 🔗

Releases: near-lake-framework-rs, near-sandbox-rs, near-sdk-rs and near-cli-rs.

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Where the NEAR Rabbit Hole goes deeper

Episode 2 looks at how NEAR is building the infrastructure for an agentic AI economy and why this shift matters.

It covers NEAR’s sharding architecture, stateless validation, performance, and AI-native tooling like Shade Agents and the MCP Server, along with ecosystem projects focused on privacy and user-owned AI.

NEAR Rabbit Hole, Episode 2. Watch here 📺

Sponsored through NEARN, as part of the Public Goods for NEAR Protocol campaign.

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