Bitwise NEAR ETF starts trading as NRR after NEAR more than doubled in two weeks, to $5.07

Bitwise has listed the first U.S. spot exchange-traded fund for the NEAR token. The Bitwise NEAR ETF trades on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR, Cointelegraph reported on Tuesday. Filings on SEC EDGAR show the listing registration took effect on Sept. 24 and the exchange certification was filed on Sept. 28. It joins Bitwise's U.S. single-coin funds for Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP and Hyperliquid.

The fund arrives after the run

NEAR was at $5.07 on Coinbase on Tuesday afternoon, up about 3% from its 24-hour open of $4.92. The daily candles show how much of the move came before the ETF existed:

Most of the gain came in the week to Sept. 22, while the fund was clearing its final SEC steps. The ETF gives brokerage-account investors access at today's price, not the price before the rally. Cointelegraph, citing CoinGecko, put the one-year gain at about 81%, a reminder of how far the token had fallen before this run.

What the prospectus says that the launch coverage skipped

• Fee: a unitary sponsor fee of 0.75% a year on the trust's NEAR holdings. On a $10,000 position, that is $75 a year, paid whether the token rises or falls.
• Staking: the trust's secondary objective is to earn additional NEAR by staking, and the Sept. 16 S-1/A says it will stake some or all of its tokens through validators chosen by Bitwise.
• Liquidity: staked NEAR is locked while it unbonds, which the filing expects to take about 48 hours in normal conditions. So the trust plans to meet redemptions on a T+2 basis and warns the unlock can take longer if a validator is offline, the network is congested or an upgrade is under way.
• Seed size: a Bitwise affiliate was expected to buy the first 20,000 shares at $25 each, $500,000 in all. That is small next to NEAR's trading volume. Coinbase alone traded about 13.3 million NEAR, roughly $67 million, in the past 24 hours.
• Supply: the protocol can issue new NEAR at up to 5% a year, which the filing notes can fall, or turn negative, when transaction fees burn enough tokens.

The case Bitwise is making

Bitwise's pitch centers on NEAR Intents, the network's cross-chain transaction service. Bitwise says Intents volume has passed $32 billion, up from less than $1 billion a year ago. Chief investment officer Matt Hougan told Cointelegraph that AI agents are a growing use of the network, though he said most activity today is still from people. The service drew attention this week after it said it blocked more than $50 million in transfers tied to the $387.5 million hack of the Bitget exchange.

What to watch: first-week creations in NRR, which show whether demand reaches the fund after a rally this size, and whether NEAR's price holds once early buyers can trade in and out through an ETF. More on the coins moving this week is on our movers page and crypto prices.

Sources: Cointelegraph; Bitwise NEAR ETF filings on SEC EDGAR; Coinbase Exchange price data (may be delayed). This is market information, not investment advice.