We're proud to announce the mainnet launch of House of Stake: a next-generation governance system designed to be transparent, scalable, and adaptive. More than just a tool, House of Stake is the first step in a multi-phase transformation of how the NEAR ecosystem is governed—and, eventually, how governance itself is reimagined.
Lock NEAR into veNEAR today to gain governance power at gov.houseofstake.org
Why House of Stake Matters
Blockchains today face a dual legitimacy crisis. On-chain governance often devolves into plutocracy, while off-chain democratic systems are overwhelmed by misinformation and apathy. House of Stake takes both problems seriously and attempts to do something that’s never been done before.
By combining transparent incentives, structured participation, and AI-augmented tooling, House of Stake is setting a precedent for governance that works—not just for NEAR, but as a blueprint for the next generation of global, digital institutions.
And we’re doing it in the open, together, with community participation as both a mechanism and a goal.
Two years ago, NEAR’s previous experiment in on-chain governance—the NEAR Digital Collective (NDC)—pushed the boundaries of community-led funding and participation. But it also faced challenges common to a lot of DAOs, such as scaling voter engagement, incentivizing participation, and rapidly allocating resources.
House of Stake is a novel experiment in on-chain governance that incorporates lessons from NDC and other, previous governance experiments. It replaces “one person, one vote” with a flexible, token-locked voting mechanism called veNEAR (vote-escrowed NEAR), which strengthens governance influence based on time-locked commitment. House of Stake has a specific, trusted body, the Screening Committee, that’s responsible for screening inbound proposals for alignment and quality before going to a vote, and incentives are structured to encourage participation.
This system is designed not only to work but indeed to evolve. To guide that evolution, we’re actively tracking how it performs—beyond just on-chain metrics.
What does success look like?
- Consistently high delegate participation and proposal engagement
- Quality and clarity of proposals passing the screening process
- Diverse stakeholder representation (not just whales)
- Growing trust in the process, measured through surveys and forum feedback
- Effective use of incentives: are rewards driving real contribution or just farming?
Now Live on NEAR
Over the past year, we’ve worked with the best partner teams in the world to design and ship the House of Stake system. Based on extensive governance research and design from our friends at Gauntlet, built by our friends at FastNear and Agora, and with facilitation, integration, and product expertise from our friends at Hack Humanity, House of Stake is officially live on mainnet:
- veNEAR Governance Token: Users lock NEAR, or liquid-staked NEAR (stNEAR, liNEAR, rNEAR) to receive veNEAR. The longer the lock, the greater the voting power and rewards. This is a pragmatic approach: stake-weighted governance is currently the most effective Sybil resistance mechanism available. As the technology matures, our ambition is to evolve toward more democratic and identity-aware models.
- Delegation System: A curated group of Endorsed Delegates help scale decision-making. They’re required to maintain high participation rates, disclose their rationale, and act in line with the community’s goals.
- Screening Committee and Security Council: These oversight bodies ensure that governance is safe, credible, and efficient. The Screening Committee reviews proposals before they go to a vote; the Security Council has a final veto and can act quickly in emergencies.
- On-chain Voting + Incentives: Using NEAR’s 0.5% annual token inflation, as well as future protocol-generated revenue sources (intents, AI infrastructure, etc.), the system funds veNEAR holders, active delegates, and community-approved grant proposals—creating a sustainable, protocol-native governance economy.
House of Stake Roadmap: Beyond Token Voting
House of Stake was designed from day one to grow into a more expansive system. This is the foundation for a new kind of institution—one that can scale with the network, adapt to its needs, and bring democratic ideals into programmable systems. Here’s a high-level look at what comes next:
Phase One (Now): Phase one, now underway, is about bootstrapping: building foundational infrastructure, establishing legitimacy, and delivering a functional and accountable system of stake-weighted governance. The initial mandate for House of Stake is protocol economic governance: fine-tuning economic parameters such as NEAR protocol issuance. It’s a pragmatic design, relying on delegated voting and token lockups to ensure long-term alignment: all participants must lock $NEAR, and the longer they lock, the more voting power they receive.
- Launch veNEAR and the on-chain voting system
- Community elects the screening committee and begins proposal screening
- Distribute early incentives and test mechanisms
- Ship foundational infrastructure (contracts, frontend, onboarding, documentation)
- Initial proposals targeting protocol economic governance go live
Phase Two: In phase two, House of Stake will take on broader responsibilities across the NEAR ecosystem, including technical and economic governance of NEAR infrastructure such as Chain Signatures, NEAR Intents, and NEAR AI Cloud.
- House of Stake expands its scope: funding more verticals, coordinating more protocol functions
- Assumes ownership of protocol economics and budgetary governance
- Introduces more robust delegate frameworks, forum tooling, and working groups
- Runs on-chain experiments in public goods allocation and participatory budgeting
Phase Three: In phase three, AI becomes a first-class participant in governance—supporting decision-making, managing workflows, and eventually unlocking new models like “swarm governance,” where intelligent agents can represent the preferences of thousands of stakeholders at once.
- Deep AI integration: agents that help interpret, vote on, and even propose governance actions
- Agents are trained on user values and community norms: governance copilots and autonomous delegates
- Governance agents represent thousands of users' preferences, run simulations of policy outcomes, and automatically adjust decisions based on community sentiment
- “Swarm governance”: a network of AI actors collaborating on behalf of their human stakeholders, coordinating at scales humans can’t match
- Real-world lessons exported to cooperatives, civic networks, and other governance domains
The House of Stake roadmap is ambitious, but achievable. We’re combining age-old techniques from governance and political philosophy with bleeding-edge technologies like AI agents and swarm intelligence to imagine and build the future of governance—starting on-chain, on NEAR, but with implications that are much broader. In line with our values such as openness and participation, we’ll share everything we build as permissively licensed, open source software, and we invite you to contribute.
How to Get Involved
Participation is permissionless, and getting started is easy:
- Lock NEAR into veNEAR to gain governance power at gov.houseofstake.org
- Read and comment on proposals on the NEAR Governance Forum
- Follow progress via @NEARGovernance
- Become a delegate by convincing others to delegate their veNEAR to you, or delegate to yourself and simply vote on proposals you care about
Whether you’re a validator, a developer, a researcher, or a curious community member, there’s a seat for you in the House. The time to act is now! The foundations are still being laid, and early participation gives you more than voting power—it gives you influence over the very shape of this system.
Join the network. Read the proposals. Ask questions. Propose ideas. Help House of Stake lead a real on-chain governance revolution. If we succeed, NEAR won’t just be the “blockchain for AI.” It’ll be a proving ground for better institutions everywhere.
Disclaimer: By accessing this site or participating in House of Stake governance or any related smart contract activity, you acknowledge that you do so entirely at your own risk. Nothing on this site constitutes investment, legal, financial, accounting, or tax advice. Participation outcomes are not guaranteed, and token values may fluctuate or result in complete loss. You are solely responsible for understanding and complying with all applicable laws in your jurisdiction, including determining, reporting, and paying any taxes arising from your participation.
