NEAR Infrastructure Committee Reviews 2025 Progress, Sets 2026 Roadmap for Scaling Chain Abstraction

TLDR:

• Native NEAR wallets integrated Intents functionality, enabling advanced cross-chain swap capabilities for users.
• Goldsky, The Graph, and Allium received funding to strengthen indexing services and historical data access.
• Community teams completed Pagoda wind-down transition, assuming control of Big Query dataset and Data Lake framework.
• The 2026 roadmap prioritizes expanded MPC networks, sharded RPC nodes, and privacy-focused infrastructure components.

The NEAR Infrastructure Committee has released its annual review, detailing substantial progress made throughout 2025 in strengthening network foundations. 

The report highlights key developments in chain abstraction technology, data infrastructure, and community ownership transitions. 

Looking ahead, the committee outlined ambitious plans for 2026, focusing on scaling existing capabilities and introducing privacy-centered infrastructure components for the expanding ecosystem.

Chain Abstraction and Wallet Integration Drive Network Evolution

The NEAR ecosystem achieved meaningful progress in chain abstraction during 2025, transforming theoretical concepts into functional reality. 

Chain signatures technology reached full generalization, while NEAR Intents experienced rapid market adoption across multiple platforms. 

The infrastructure committee supported this transition by funding critical components that enabled seamless cross-chain operations.

Native wallet providers, including Meteor, HOT, Intear, Near Mobile, and Nightly, successfully integrated NEAR Intents functionality. 

These integrations delivered advanced cross-chain swap capabilities to end users, representing one component of broader wallet infrastructure improvements. 

The committee also backed proposals to modernize Fast Auth and OneClickConnect systems, enhancing user authentication processes across the network.

Tachyon emerged as the winning solution in the Chain Abstracted Relayer request for proposals. The multi-chain relayer utilizes NEAR chain signatures technology to facilitate cross-chain transactions. 

Meanwhile, the committee approved funding for a new wallet selector and supported Privy integration to reinforce chain-agnostic user experiences.

The wallet infrastructure developments align with NEAR’s broader vision of removing technical barriers for mainstream users. 

Universal authentication systems now allow users to interact with blockchain applications without understanding the underlying chain mechanics. 

This approach positions the network for increased adoption in 2026 as agentic commerce applications emerge.

Data Infrastructure and Community Ownership Transitions

Accessing blockchain data remained a priority throughout 2025, particularly given NEAR’s sub-second block times and multi-sharding architecture. 

The infrastructure committee funded comprehensive indexing solutions and analytics tools to ensure data transparency for developers. 

Goldsky and The Graph received support for indexing services, while Allium’s data lake solution enables historical blockchain data access.

NEARBlocks explorer continued receiving funding, expanding its multi-chain indexing capabilities to support NEAR Intents visibility. 

The committee also approved proposals bringing institutional-grade analytics providers Token Terminal and Chainspect onto the network. 

These integrations provide detailed data granularity required by advanced developers and institutional participants.

The completion of Pagoda’s wind-down initiative marked a significant milestone for decentralized infrastructure management. 

Community teams assumed responsibility for previously centralized services, with Meteor maintaining the Big Query public dataset and Aurora managing the Data Lake framework. 

Legacy components like Kit Wallet underwent orderly discontinuation, with user migration to modern alternatives.

For 2026, the committee plans to scale chain abstraction capabilities through an expanded MPC network and multi-chain verifiable execution via trusted execution environments.

Infrastructure preparation for network sharding will require new components, including sharded RPC nodes and cloud archival solutions. 

Privacy-focused infrastructure will support confidential user-owned AI applications through novel wallet tools and emerging standards.

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