Bitwise NEAR ETF Launches on NYSE Arca as First $NRR

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The launch gives U.S. investors direct, staked exposure to NEAR without holding the token themselves. It also carries a 0.75% sponsor fee and a staking setup that keeps only part of the network rewards.

What the Bitwise NEAR ETF Holds

The Bitwise NEAR ETF is a spot product. It holds NEAR directly at Coinbase Custody and prices its net asset value off the CME CF NEAR reference rate.

The structure matters here. NRR is a 1933 Act commodity trust, according to its SEC prospectus. It is not a fund registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940.

So the usual mutual-fund protections do not apply. There is no board oversight, no diversification rule, and no daily redemption at NAV.

The service stack is institutional. Coinbase Custody holds the NEAR, BNY Mellon handles cash and administration, and Attestant runs the validators.

Shares trade on NYSE Arca at market price. As a result, they can move to a premium or a discount versus the underlying NEAR.

The 0.75% Fee and the 33% Staking Cut

Marketing leads with staking. Bitwise says it plans to stake close to 100% of the fund’s NEAR in-house through its own team.

The advertised yield sits near 5%. That figure is the 30-day average network rate as of September 25, not a promised fund return.

The prospectus tells a fuller story. Staking expenses take 33% of the rewards, so the trust keeps roughly 67%.

Do the math and the gap shows. A 5% network rate drops to about 3.35% before the 0.75% sponsor fee comes out.

Daily Crypto Briefs flagged the cut early. It noted that several pre-launch stories left the 33% haircut out entirely.

Bitwise’s European NEAR product shows the same pattern. Its advertised net yield fell from 5.5% at launch to 3.01% by late September.

Network rate estimates also vary. NearStats showed about 4.5% on launch day, while RUNEBond listed 6.06%. Rewards accrue to the fund’s NAV per share, so holders receive no cash dividend.

Why NEAR Sold Off on Launch Day

The product launched green. The token did not.

NEAR traded near $4.77 on Tuesday, down about 4% on the day, according to CoinDesk price data. Market cap sat close to $5.96 billion.

The move looks like a classic sell-the-news. NEAR had already jumped from roughly $4.30 to above $5.20 this month. That spike followed the SEC’s listing clearance on September 24.

Over 30 days the token is still up sharply, near 160% on several trackers. So the launch-day dip sits on top of a large rally.

Futures positioning ran hot into the event. Open interest topped $1.5 billion, per CoinGlass data cited by ETHNews. That signals trader appetite, not confirmed ETF demand.

Bitwise’s AI Agentic Economy Pitch

Bitwise frames NEAR as infrastructure for AI. Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan tied the launch to software agents that transact on their own.

“NEAR sits at the intersection of two of the biggest trends in technology: AI and crypto,” Hougan said in the launch release.

NEAR co-founder Illia Polosukhin echoed the theme. He described NEAR as a stack where AI is the front end and blockchain is the back end.

The pitch rests on NEAR Intents, a cross-chain settlement layer. Bitwise cited more than $32 billion in routed volume, up from under $1 billion a year earlier.

Analysts stayed cool. Bloomberg Intelligence’s James Seyffart simply confirmed the ticker and the 0.75% fee on X.

First to List, but Not First to File

The “first” label needs a caveat. Bitwise is first to list a U.S. spot NEAR ETP, per its own release and NEAR’s official account.

It was also the first to file. Bitwise submitted its S-1 in May 2025, according to The Block. Grayscale’s GSNR conversion attempt came later, in January 2026.

Europe got there earlier in another wrapper. Bitwise has run a NEAR staking ETP on Deutsche Börse Xetra since July 2025.

A regulatory shift made the U.S. version possible. The SEC moved to generic listing standards for commodity trusts in September 2025, which removed the old 19b-4 bottleneck.

What Comes Next for the Bitwise NEAR ETF

Key numbers are still missing. Bitwise has not yet published first-day volume, assets, or the premium to NAV.

Demand is the real test. U.S. Solana ETFs remain small next to Bitcoin and Ether products, and NRR seeded with just $500,000.

Net yield deserves attention too. After the 33% cut and the 0.75% fee, the payout to holders will land well below the headline 5%.

For now, the Bitwise NEAR ETF gives regulated access to a staked altcoin. The trade-offs sit plainly in the prospectus. Investors can track NRR on NYSE Arca as the first flows print.

This article is informational and not financial advice. Always do your own research before investing in any crypto product.