NEAR has a block finalization time of 1.2 seconds. One. Point. Two. Seconds.
And if you held $SOL, $ETH, or are sitting on Optimism hoping that your tokens will finally arrive in 3 minutes — take a seat. It’s going to hurt a bit.
1. Doomslug is not fiction, but a blockchain reality
NEAR implemented a consensus mechanism called Doomslug. Sounds like a supervillain — and works almost the same way.
Blocks appear every 600 milliseconds and are finalized in 1.2 seconds.
For reference:
• Solana: ~12 seconds (if in a good mood)
• Ethereum: from 15 minutes to coffee break
• Arbitrum/Optimism: a couple of minutes, if everything is okay
2. How is this possible?
The Doomslug mechanism allows validators to build a block 'at a high level', and at that moment it becomes irreversible.
That is, canceling a transaction is practically impossible
It's like a bank transfer that cannot be reversed, even if the client suddenly 'remembers that they clicked the wrong button'. Transparent, fast, and most importantly, secure.
3. The market is moving
While Ethereum gathers dust waiting for sharding, and Solana boasts about a 97% uptime this month, NEAR does the most important thing — it works stably and quickly.
No reboots. No phrases like 'we are aware of the issue and are working on a solution'.
And let’s be honest: we all love numbers. NEAR is 10 times faster than Solana in finalization and 600 times faster than Ethereum. The question is: why do we need the slow ones then?
4. What does this mean for investors?
If you have NEAR in your portfolio — hold on. The network shows not just promises, but results.
And if you still believe in memes, hold $PEPE or hope that Vitalik will someday speed up Ethereum to 30 seconds
5. And Solana?
Solana is like a sports car without brakes. Fast, but every third turn ends up in a ditch.
Yes, TPS is around 65 thousand, yes, NFTs are buzzing, but when it comes to finalization and stability — Solana turns into a student with a hangover: seems to get up, but lies down again.
Conclusion:
The blockchain war is gaining momentum, and it seems we have a new leader in the nomination 'works fast, stably, and does not crash on weekends'.
NEAR shows: a blockchain can be lightning-fast, secure, and reasonable. No need to wait 15 minutes. No need to refresh Metamask. Just — click, confirm, and done. In 1.2 seconds.
