NEAR Protocol has released its Q2 roadmap update, with the Pagoda development team submitting three proposals to implement account extensions. These proposals include the NEP for account namespaces, the NEP for wasm submodules, and the NEP for shared contract code storage.
The team has made significant improvements to the mainnet, achieving an 8x increase in state read performance. Backend writing capabilities are currently in progress, potentially reducing state writing costs by threefold. Additionally, cold storage has been fully deployed, significantly lowering the costs associated with running archival nodes.
In the realm of state synchronization enhancements, nodes are now capable of syncing the mainnet state within 3 hours. A fully-featured new state synchronization tool is projected to be delivered in the third quarter. The team has also delivered Finite Wasm and its integration with nearcore, enhancing the security and stability of NEAR contract runtime.
In the “Experience” section of the roadmap, there are two changes: the required changes for implementing account extensions are temporarily shelved, and the protocol team will focus on addressing storage refunds. In the core part of the roadmap, the third quarter will pivot towards the second phase of sharding. This involves re-sharding the current mainnet state and removing the requirement for block producers to track all shards. This work is anticipated to span multiple quarters.