House of Stake logoHouse of Stake
Roles and Accountability

What the Security Council Does

The role of the Security Council in emergencies, upgrades, and governance safeguards.

The Security Council is the governance body's emergency and safety backstop.

It helps protect the NEAR protocol and the House of Stake process during emergencies, sensitive upgrades, or situations where security risks need fast action.

Purpose

The Security Council exists to:

  • Respond to urgent threats or security vulnerabilities
  • Coordinate emergency actions (e.g., halts, patch deployments)
  • Provide oversight during sensitive governance transitions
  • Maintain trust in the network during crises

Structure

The Council is composed of two types of members:

  • Core Members: Permanent representatives from foundational NEAR ecosystem organizations (e.g., Near Foundation,Near One)
  • Key Members: Independent or semi-independent contributors with technical or strategic expertise

Security Council Structure

This tiered composition ensures both institutional stability and diverse perspectives.

Responsibilities

  • Initiate emergency interventions when necessary
  • Inform the community within 7 days after emergency actions
  • Monitor proposals for potential malicious behavior
  • Coordinate with developers, validators, and governance participants during upgrades
  • Oversee technical integrity of the governance system
  • Support the Screening Committee in identifying security risks

Accountability

Security Council members are expected to act in the best interest of the NEAR ecosystem. While their powers are reserved for exceptional circumstances, transparency and clear communication are required after any intervention.

Over time, the Council’s composition and powers may evolve through on-chain governance decisions as the system matures.

Council Composition

The Security Council membership is appointed by the NEAR Foundation. Every effort will be made to keep the membership up to date here, but the current set of member accounts is always visible on chain as the members of the hos-root.sputnik-dao.near account.

Current Members:

  • as.near (Alex Shevchenko)
  • fastnear-hos.near (Evgeny Kuzyakov)
  • c65255255d689f74ae46b0a89f04bbaab94d3a51ab9dc4b79b1e9b61e7cf6816 (Kendall Cole)
  • e953bb69d1129e4da87b99739373884a0b57d5e64a65fdc868478f22e6c31eac (Bowen Wang)
  • root.near (Illia Polosukhin)

On this page