NEAR's on-chain governance body, House of Stake, passed proposal HSP-027 on Monday, eliminating the protocol's developer gas rebate. Co-founder Illia Polosukhin confirmed the result, describing the move as a step "to keep NEAR Protocol simpler and cleaner going forward."
The vote wasn't close. Final tally came in at 46 votes representing 4.66 million veNEAR in favor, with just two votes totaling 1,819 veNEAR against.
What changes and when
Under the current setup, smart-contract owners receive 30% of gas fees generated by calls to their contracts, with the other 70% burned. Once HSP-027 takes effect, expected around August 2026 alongside the nearcore v2.14 release, that 30% slice disappears entirely. All gas fees go to burn.
NEAR's developer-relations account flagged the vote in early July, telling builders not to factor the gas bonus into their dApp budgets anymore. Polosukhin, who originally designed the rebate to incentivize developers to build reusable components, said the mechanism no longer fits how most NEAR projects actually make money. Teams typically sponsor gas costs and recover revenue through spreads, subscriptions or advertising rather than relying on fee rebates. He also pointed to a practical headache: the rebate was difficult to tell apart from ordinary user fund deposits in accounting.
Polosukhin framed the vote as a test run for House of Stake's authority over NEAR's core economic parameters, calling it "a great test" ahead of future proposals. Removing the rebate carve-out makes NEAR's token issuance incrementally more deflationary, though the network's broader value-capture model stays intact.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice.
