Bitwise Launches First US Spot NEAR ETF as Token Nearly Triples Since August
Key Takeaways
- •Bitwise's spot NEAR ETF, trading as NRR on NYSE Arca, is the first spot NEAR product for U.S. investors and carries a 0.75% annual fee.
- •The fund holds actual NEAR tokens and stakes them through Bitwise's in-house team, with average rewards of about 5% accruing to shareholders, though returns are not guaranteed and slashing risk exists.
- •NEAR traded around $5.09 on Tuesday, roughly triple its August lows near $1.60, giving the token a $6.5 billion market capitalization while remaining about 75% below its all-time high above $20.
- •The SEC's September 2025 approval of generic listing standards streamlined the path for crypto ETFs, and Grayscale has filed to convert its NEAR trust into a second spot NEAR option on U.S. exchanges.
- •Bitwise positions NEAR as an AI-focused layer-1 blockchain, citing co-founder Illia Polosukhin's role as a co-creator of the Transformer architecture and Near Intents' more than $32 billion in cross-chain swap volume.
Bitwise's spot NEAR exchange-traded fund began trading Tuesday on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR, carrying a 0.75% annual fee, according to Bitwise. The asset manager describes the product as the first spot NEAR fund available to U.S. investors.
The launch gives investors a way to gain exposure to the AI-focused NEAR blockchain from an ordinary brokerage account, no crypto exchange account or wallet required. It also arrives at a notable moment: NEAR traded around $5.09 on Binance on Tuesday, roughly triple its August lows near $1.60.
At that price, the token commands a $6.5 billion market capitalization, though it remains down about 75% from its all-time high above $20.
What a spot NEAR ETF is
"Spot" means the fund holds actual NEAR tokens rather than futures contracts, which are bets on where the price goes next. An ETF is a fund investors buy and sell like a stock: the tokens sit inside the fund, and its shares appear alongside everything else in a brokerage app. For anyone who never wanted a crypto exchange account or a wallet, that is the core appeal.
The fund also stakes. Bitwise says its in-house team will stake the fund's NEAR to capture average rewards of about 5%, which accrue to shareholders as a rise in the fund's value per share — though the firm cautions that nothing about those rewards is guaranteed.
A rally months in the making
The timing is hard to miss, considering NEAR has been skyrocketing since May. It is not the token's first spike this year, either: NEAR jumped 28% in 24 hours in May on privacy, AI and scaling upgrades, then slid back toward $2 over the summer before its latest climb.
What NEAR actually is
NEAR is a layer-1 blockchain — a base network that other applications are built on, placing it in the same category as Ethereum and Solana. Its main network went live in 2020.
The AI angle traces to co-founder Illia Polosukhin, a co-creator of the Transformer, the architecture behind ChatGPT-style models. NEAR launched an AI research lab in May 2024, led by Polosukhin and co-founder Alex Skidanov.
Bitwise's pitch leans on AI agents — software that takes actions for you, like paying for things or booking a trip.
"We're moving toward a world in which AI agents increasingly act on our behalf, coordinate with one another, and participate in the economy," Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley said in a statement. "We believe this shift—to an agentic economy where more and more happens through AI agents—could unlock an enormous new frontier for the global economy. NEAR is building a platform for that future."
Bitwise adds that Near Intents, a service for swapping assets across different blockchains, has handled more than $32 billion in volume.
Staking rewards, with caveats
Staking means locking up tokens to help validate a network's transactions, and in return the network pays rewards, a bit like interest but paid in more tokens. Bitwise's disclosures note that rewards can change and that staking carries "slashing" risk, meaning penalties when a validator breaks the network's rules. In NRR's case, Bitwise's in-house team does the staking, so shareholders never have to run validators or manage wallets themselves. Bitwise operates a similar staking arrangement in its Solana ETF, which began trading in October.
The fund also holds only one asset, and Bitwise warns investors could lose a significant part or all of their money.
A regulatory path cleared
Bitwise filed Delaware paperwork for a NEAR fund in April 2025, when the token traded at $2.61. Grayscale followed in January 2026, filing to convert its existing NEAR trust into an ETF while NEAR sat around $1.54. Both filings landed at prices well below Tuesday's level near $5.09. If approved, Grayscale's conversion would give investors a second spot NEAR option on U.S. exchanges.
The road smoother in September 2025, when the SEC approved generic listing standards that let exchanges list qualifying crypto funds without a separate approval for each one. Litecoin, Hedera, and Solana funds followed that October, including Bitwise's Solana staking ETF. NRR is the latest to follow, adding NEAR to the roster of assets with U.S. spot ETFs under the streamlined process.
Bitwise charges 0.75% a year for NRR, or $75 on every $10,000 invested.
