NEAR Protocol's on-chain governance body, the House of Stake, passed proposal HSP-027 this week, eliminating the network's developer gas rebate program. All gas fees generated on NEAR will now be burned, co-founder Illia Polosukhin said Monday.
Previously, a portion of transaction fees was rebated directly to smart contract developers as a deployment incentive. That capital flow now routes entirely to token burns, shifting the protocol's fee structure toward deflationary tokenomics.
The House of Stake—composed of validators and token holders—framed the proposal as an alignment of fee structure with broader ecosystem goals. Burning fees reduces total NEAR supply, a supply-side mechanic similar to Ethereum's EIP-1559, which has burned a base fee from each transaction since the London upgrade in Aug. 2021.
Developers building on NEAR will no longer receive direct gas fee reimbursements. Protocol treasury funding and grant programs may now become the primary levers for developer support as projects previously reliant on rebates adjust their operational models.
