Bitwise officially launched trading for the first NEAR ETF in the U.S. market on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. Listed on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR, the financial vehicle is structured as a spot fund. This means the asset manager directly buys and holds actual NEAR tokens to back the fund’s shares, rather than merely tracking price movements through derivatives or futures contracts.
Investors looking to allocate capital to the fund are charged an annual management fee of 0.75%. That expense ratio equates to a $75 fee for every $10,000 of capital invested in the exchange-traded fund.
Additional Yield from Staking
The primary advantage of NRR over earlier-generation crypto ETFs lies in its asset utilization. Bitwise is not letting the fund’s NEAR tokens sit idle. Instead, they deploy the tokens into the network’s staking mechanism to validate transactions, generating an estimated 5% annual passive yield.
Cash flow from staking rewards is directly accrued into the per-share value held by investors. Naturally, this added yield comes with trade-offs. Layer-1 staking systems inherently carry slashing risks - penalties in which staked assets are forfeited if a validator node violates network operational rules. Staking yields also depend entirely on network activity, meaning returns are never guaranteed.
Fast-Track Path Without Individual Approvals
The product’s debut on U.S. public markets was aided by regulatory easing late last year. In September 2025, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved generic listing standards. This rule change allows exchanges to list qualified crypto ETFs directly without having to seek separate approval for each new underlying coin.
Bitwise had laid the groundwork well before the SEC gave the green light. The firm first filed preliminary trust documents in Delaware in April 2025, when NEAR was trading at $2.61. Rival asset manager Grayscale followed suit by filing for a similar product nine months later in January 2026, when the asset’s price stood at $1.54.
Betting on the AI Agent Economy
For Bitwise leadership, the project’s appeal extends beyond traditional market financial metrics. The layer-1 blockchain, originally launched in 2020, was co-founded by Illia Polosukhin. He is one of the key creators of the Transformer architecture - the core breakthrough that serves as the backbone for popular artificial intelligence models like ChatGPT.
The founder’s background serves as a central pitch for the product. “NEAR is building the platform for the agentic economy where AI agents will increasingly act on our behalf,” said Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley.
Beyond the AI narrative, the NEAR ecosystem boasts robust usage. NEAR Intents, the network’s cross-chain asset exchange service, facilitates swaps and has already handled over $32 billion in transaction volume.
Reported via Decrypt.
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Disclaimer: This article is for informational and educational purposes only, not financial advice. Cryptocurrency assets are highly volatile and carry significant risk. Always do your own research (DYOR) and never invest more than you can afford to lose.
