Bitwise launched the first U.S. spot ETF tracking NEAR Protocol (NEAR) on Sept. 29, reporting $35.5 million in first-day net inflows.
Key Points:
- NRR trades on NYSE Arca with a 0.75% annual management fee.
- Bitwise plans to stake a substantial portion of the fund’s NEAR holdings in-house, targeting participation in rewards near the network’s roughly 5% current annual rate.
- The ETF ended its first trading day with $36 million in assets under management and $15.1 million in volume.
NEAR ETF Debut
The Bitwise NEAR ETF, trading under NRR on NYSE Arca, gives U.S. investors spot exposure to NEAR through a publicly traded product. Bitwise said the 0.75% management fee means a $1,000 position would cost about $7.50 annually before other expenses.
The asset manager intends to stake a substantial share of the fund’s NEAR through its internal institutional staking team, aiming to capture rewards near the network’s roughly 5% current annual rate. Those rewards are not guaranteed, and Bitwise warned that staking carries slashing and operational risks. The fund also holds a single crypto asset, leaving investors exposed to NEAR price swings.
NRR reported $35.5 million in net inflows on its first trading day, alongside $15.1 million in trading volume and $36 million in assets under management. The debut added NEAR to Bitwise’s existing lineup of single-asset crypto products in the United States.
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Bitwise AI Thesis
Hunter Horsley, Bitwise’s CEO, tied the fund to the company’s view that AI agents will increasingly transact and coordinate independently across digital services. “NEAR is building a platform for that future,” Horsley said, describing what Bitwise calls an emerging agentic economy.
The argument centers on NEAR Intents, a system that lets users or AI agents request transactions while competing third-party solvers handle execution across different blockchains.
Bitwise said the product has processed more than $32 billion in total volume, up from less than $1 billion a year earlier. Matt Hougan, Bitwise’s chief investment officer, said, “Bridging and cross-chain abstraction has been a challenge for crypto for nearly a decade.”
The ETF arrived after a sharp move in the underlying token. NEAR opened near $1.93 on Aug. 28 and near $5.39 on Sept. 28, an increase of about 179%, before closing around $4.89 on Sept. 29. That rally put the launch into a market already showing unusually strong recent interest in NEAR.
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