NEAR launches the first phase of shard upgrades, planning to introduce a new mechanism to lower the threshold for validator nodes

Chain Catcher news, NEAR has launched the first phase of its sharding upgrade, planning to introduce "block validators" that are easier to set up than full nodes, aiming to fundamentally lower the entry barrier for NEAR validators and thus increase decentralization. Analysis suggests that this could add over 200 new validating nodes to NEAR, bringing the total number to over 300. (Coindesk)