Andrei Grachev, a partner at crypto market maker DWF Labs, made a public pledge on Wednesday to purchase an additional 10 million NEAR tokens on the secondary market if the NEAR Protocol team agrees to reduce the token’s annual inflation rate from its current 5% to 2.5%.

Grachev said in an X post that DWF Labs currently holds 5 million NEAR tokens and has another 6 million staked to secure the protocol.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

Bowen Wang, the head of NEAR’s research and development unit, replied: “I think it could be a good idea to reduce inflation to make the tokenomics more sustainable, but it is up to the community to decide.” 

If the community votes to implement the proposed inflation reduction, it would mark a significant change to the protocol’s tokenomics, and could potentially impact passive rewards earned from staking.

The NEAR token nevertheless faces significant sell pressure and has fallen 52% during the year to date.