NEAR Protocol’s native token jumped 28% on May 22, 2026, rising from $1.76 to $2.24 after the Layer 1 blockchain confirmed that network upgrade 2.13 will go live in June, automating shard creation and adding NIST-approved post-quantum signing. Market capitalization reached $2.9 billion and 24-hour trading volume spiked 161% to $1.02 billion, signaling unusually strong demand for a single-day move. The upgrade is the largest protocol change since NEAR’s mainnet launch in 2020, and replaces a manual sharding process that previously required validator votes and weeks of coordination.
A layer 1 blockchain is a base network like Ethereum or Bitcoin where transactions are recorded directly, as opposed to layer 2 networks that batch transactions before settling them on the base chain.
Key takeaways
- NEAR Protocol surged 28% to $2.24 after announcing network upgrade 2.13, which goes live in June 2026.
- Dynamic resharding will let the chain automatically split shards once a state size threshold is hit, without validator votes.
- The same upgrade ships FIPS-204 (ML-DSA) post-quantum signing, the lattice-based standard NIST approved in August 2024.
- 24-hour trading volume hit $1.02 billion, a 161% jump, with market cap reaching $2.9 billion.
Published: May 22, 2026, 16:00 UTC
What NEAR announced
NEAR Protocol said its June release, network upgrade 2.13, will activate dynamic resharding and post-quantum-safe signing in a single hard fork. The protocol has used sharding since launch, but adding new shards has required validator coordination, a governance vote, and a staged rollout that often took weeks. Dynamic resharding removes that process. When a shard’s state size crosses a predefined threshold, the chain splits it deterministically into parallel shards validated by state witnesses, with no human action required.
The post-quantum component is just as significant. NEAR chose FIPS-204, also called ML-DSA and formerly CRYSTALS-Dilithium, a lattice-based digital signature scheme NIST standardized in August 2024. Account holders will be able to rotate their keys to the quantum-safe scheme in a single transaction, with no address migration required, because of NEAR’s human-readable account model.
Why the price moved
Two factors drove the 28% move from $1.76 to $2.24. The first was the timeline. Until this week, post-quantum signing was scheduled for a Q2 2026 testnet, with mainnet activation undated. Confirming a June mainnet launch shortened the runway for traders pricing in the upgrade. The second was the technical scope. Most Layer 1 networks have announced intent to harden against quantum attacks, but NEAR is among the first to commit to a NIST-standardized scheme on mainnet with a clear date.
Volume tells the rest of the story. A $1.02 billion 24-hour trade reading on a $2.9 billion market cap puts the volume-to-market-cap ratio above 35%, a level usually seen during major exchange listings or token unlock events rather than protocol announcements.
How dynamic resharding works
NEAR’s sharding model, called Nightshade, splits the chain into parallel shards that process transactions independently. Today, each new shard requires a coordinated upgrade. Under dynamic resharding, the protocol monitors each shard’s state size against a threshold the network sets. When a shard exceeds the limit, it splits into two, with state witnesses (compressed cryptographic proofs of state) used to validate the new shards without forcing every validator to download the full state.
The change matters for capacity planning. In testnet runs, NEAR has hit roughly 1 million transactions per second across a sharded benchmark trial. Automating shard creation lets the network expand without operational lag during demand spikes, an issue every major Layer 1 has faced during NFT mints, memecoin rushes, or AI agent activity.
Quantum-safe signing across 35 chains
The post-quantum upgrade extends beyond NEAR itself. The chain operates a feature called Chain Signatures that lets NEAR accounts hold and transact assets on more than 35 external networks, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Once ML-DSA is live on NEAR, those cross-chain signatures inherit the quantum-resistant property, providing a quantum-safe wrapper for assets on chains that have not yet upgraded their own signature schemes.
That matters because Bitcoin and Ethereum currently rely on elliptic curve signatures (ECDSA on Bitcoin and Ethereum, Ed25519 on Solana), all of which are vulnerable to attacks from sufficiently large quantum computers under Shor’s algorithm. NIST published FIPS-204, FIPS-203, and FIPS-205 in August 2024 specifically to give software vendors and protocol teams a standardized migration path.
What comes next
The June rollout date has not yet been pinned to a specific block height. NEAR’s validators must coordinate the upgrade activation, and a delay of a few weeks is common for hard forks of this scale. Traders watching NEAR’s chart will look for confirmation that the testnet activation completes without incident before the mainnet date is fixed. A successful launch positions NEAR as the first major Layer 1 to ship both NIST-grade post-quantum cryptography and automated sharding on production, a combination no peer has matched.
Frequently asked questions
What is dynamic resharding?
Dynamic resharding is a protocol-level feature that lets a sharded blockchain automatically split a shard into two when its state size crosses a preset threshold. Validators do not vote or coordinate the change. The split happens deterministically and is verified using compressed state witnesses, so the network can scale without manual intervention.
Why does post-quantum signing matter for crypto?
Most blockchains, including Bitcoin and Ethereum, use elliptic curve signatures that a sufficiently large quantum computer could break using Shor’s algorithm. Post-quantum signing schemes like FIPS-204 (ML-DSA) use lattice-based math that is resistant to that attack, giving long-term holders and protocols a migration path before quantum hardware reaches scale.
When does NEAR’s upgrade 2.13 go live?
NEAR Protocol has said network upgrade 2.13 will activate on mainnet in June 2026. A specific date has not been announced. The upgrade ships dynamic resharding and FIPS-204 post-quantum signing in the same hard fork, and will be preceded by a testnet activation.
