NEAR Mobile Scraps Its Three-Tier System, Here’s What Changes For Everyone

NEAR Mobile wallet recently bucked the common industry trend of crypto apps quietly nerfing their free tiers by releasing Version 3.11.0 on Monday, July 20.

Instead of adding another paywall or squeezing more value out of paying users, this update collapsed the entire membership structure down to just two tiers and handed free users a genuinely better deal than they had before.

NEAR Mobile confirmed the update in a post on X, describing a simpler membership system built to bring more features to free users, refine the premium experience, and strengthen the long-term utility of $NPRO. I think that’s a rare combination to pull off in one release.

Usually a project picks one of those goals and sacrifices the others. NEAR Mobile appears to have actually tried to hit all three at once.

What’s Actually Changing In This Update

Before this release, NEAR Mobile ran three separate membership tiers. As of July 20, that’s down to two: Basic and Premium. I think the simplification itself is worth noting before even getting into what each tier offers, since collapsing three tiers into two usually means someone’s benefits get worse. Here, the opposite happened for the tier most people are actually on.

Basic, the free tier, now gives every user up to two wallets, full Investor Info access, price change notifications, standard swap fees at 0.88%, and standard staking fees at 5%, with zero NPRO required to unlock any of it. I think it’s worth sitting with that last point specifically. A feature set that used to require holding a token is now available to anyone who simply downloads the app.

Why Premium Still Makes Sense For Power Users

Premium didn’t disappear, and I don’t think it should have. It’s still clearly built for power users and long-term supporters rather than casual holders. The new requirements are a 500 NPRO holding paired with a one-year commitment, a meaningfully higher bar than what existed before. In exchange, Premium members get unlimited wallets, the same Investor Info access, direct human support, reduced swap fees at 0.66%, and zero staking fees entirely.

I think raising the entry bar while simultaneously giving free users more actually makes the Premium tier more coherent, not less appealing. It’s no longer competing with Basic over features that free users can now access anyway. It’s positioned specifically for people who trade or stake enough volume that the fee reduction and unlimited wallets genuinely pay for themselves.

Early Supporters Get Grandfathered In

What stood out to me most is how NEAR Mobile handled its existing Premium base. Rather than forcing current members to suddenly meet the new 500 NPRO and one-year requirements, the team is letting anyone who was already a Premium member keep their original terms: 250 NPRO and a one-month commitment, described explicitly as a thank-you for supporting the app early.

I don’t think this kind of grandfathering is common enough in crypto. Plenty of projects change their tokenomics overnight and let early adopters simply eat the difference. Locking in better terms for the people who committed capital before the product had proven itself is the kind of decision that actually builds trust rather than eroding it, and I think it’s worth calling out directly.

How I Actually Staked NEAR To Start Earning NPRO

I went through the staking flow myself after this update, and it’s straightforward enough that I don’t think it needs much explanation. Open the NEAR Mobile wallet app and deposit some NEAR into it if you haven’t already. From the main screen, tap Earn, then select the “Stake My Token” tab. Choose how much NEAR you want to stake, confirm, and your tokens lock into the staking pool from there.

Once staked, you can track how much you’re earning per day directly from the Overview section, and every pool you’re staked into shows up under the My Staking tab, where you’re free to unstake at any point. There’s no complicated bridging step or external dashboard required. It’s built to happen entirely inside the same app you’re already using to manage your wallet.

The Numbers Behind This Week’s Staking Pool

NEAR Mobile also shared its latest weekly validator staking metrics in a separate post on X. Current APY for NEAR stakers sits at 7.50%, pool liquidity is at $204.17k, and total staked NEAR across the pool has reached 2.81 million.

Worth noting: that APY figure reflects NPRO rewards distributed to stakers, annualized against NPRO’s current market price, which means it’s a variable number that will move as the token’s price shifts over time, not a fixed guaranteed return.

I think that distinction matters more than it usually gets credit for. A lot of staking dashboards present APY as a static, guaranteed figure when it’s really a snapshot tied to a fluctuating token price. NEAR Mobile being upfront about that volatility is a small detail, but it’s the kind of honesty I’d rather see more staking products adopt as standard practice.

My Take On Why This Update Matters

I think the real story here isn’t the new fee percentages or the staking numbers, even though those matter. It’s that NEAR Mobile chose to strengthen its free tier at the exact moment most projects would be tightening the screws to push users toward a paid tier instead. Combined with grandfathering early Premium supporters into better terms than new members get, this reads less like a routine version bump and more like a deliberate bet that trust and accessibility compound into more long-term usage than aggressive monetization ever does.

Whether that bet pays off depends on whether NPRO’s utility actually grows as more people stake and engage with the ecosystem now that the barrier to entry is gone. But as a user, I think this is one of the more refreshing membership overhauls I’ve seen from a crypto app this year, and it’s worth trying the update yourself to see how the new tier structure actually feels in daily use.

Some visuals in this article are AI-generated illustrations created to demonstrate NEAR Mobile features and are not actual screenshots of the app. For accurate, up-to-date information or to interact directly with the wallet, please visit https://www.nearmobile.app/.

Disclosure: This is not trading or investment advice. Always do your research before buying any cryptocurrency or investing in any services. Follow us on X @nulltxnews