NEAR's House of Stake governance body passed proposal HSP-027 on Monday to eliminate the protocol's developer gas rebate system, according to co-founder Illia Polosukhin. Under the change, 100% of network gas fees will now be burned instead of being partly rebated to smart-contract owners.
The rebate program previously carved out a portion of network fees to return to developers as compensation. That mechanism is now gone. All future gas revenue flows directly to token burn, reducing NEAR's circulating supply instead of subsidizing builder incentives.
The decision trades developer cash flow for token scarcity. Builders lose a revenue stream; the protocol gains deflationary pressure on its token. NEAR trades at roughly $2.05 on market data, ranked #35 by market cap. The rebate elimination reflects a governance shift toward supply discipline, but leaves an open question: what replaces it for developer retention.
NEAR's foundation has historically run separate grant and incentive programs to attract builders. The governance vote doesn't appear to have hinged on eliminating those parallel mechanisms, but the loss of automatic gas rebates does narrow the economic case for building on NEAR versus competing chains that offer similar or more generous developer support.
Polosukhin's confirmation of the outcome came Monday. No additional reporting has disclosed rebate volumes, expected impact on fees, or how the foundation intends to offset developer incentives through other channels. The burn mechanism itself is straightforward: every transaction that would have partly rebated to creators now solely reduces token supply.