Bitwise's Near ETF Starts Trading on NYSE Arca as Token Climbs Past $5

Bitwise's spot Near fund began trading Tuesday on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR, opening a path into the AI-oriented blockchain for investors who would rather use a brokerage account than a crypto exchange or wallet.

The fund charges 0.75% annually, or $75 per $10,000 invested, and Bitwise describes it as the first U.S. spot fund for Near. Spot means the vehicle holds the token itself rather than futures contracts that only track its price. An ETF trades like a stock, so NRR shares sit alongside other holdings in a standard brokerage app.

NEAR, the network's native asset, was trading just above $5 at a market capitalization of about $6.5 billion. That is a sharp move from the summer, when it drifted near $2, and a further climb from May, when it gained 28% in a single day on upgrades tied to privacy, AI and scaling before giving the gains back. It remains roughly 75% below its record high above $20.

Near is a layer-1 blockchain, the base network category that also includes Ethereum and Solana, and its mainnet went live in 2020. Its AI credentials trace to co-founder Illia Polosukhin, one of the creators of the Transformer architecture underlying ChatGPT-style models. Near opened an AI research lab in May 2024, run by Polosukhin and co-founder Alex Skidanov.

Bitwise's marketing centers on AI agents, software that carries out tasks such as payments or travel bookings on a user's behalf. "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."

The firm also points to Near Intents, a cross-chain asset-swapping service, which it says has processed more than $32 billion in volume.

Staking rewards, and the risks attached

NRR stakes the Near it holds, locking tokens to help validate network transactions in exchange for rewards paid in additional tokens. Bitwise says its internal team will handle staking and targets average rewards of about 5%, which reach shareholders through a higher value per fund share.

That is not assured. Bitwise's disclosures state rewards can fluctuate, and staking carries slashing risk, the penalties a validator incurs for breaking network rules. NRR also holds a single asset, and the firm warns investors may lose a substantial portion or all of their money.

The filing history shows how far the regulatory ground has shifted. Bitwise lodged Delaware paperwork for a Near fund in April 2025, when the token changed hands at $2.61. Grayscale filed in January 2026 to convert an existing Near trust into an ETF, with Near then around $1.54. The path widened in September 2025 when the SEC adopted generic listing standards, allowing exchanges to list qualifying crypto funds without case-by-case approval, which cleared the way for Litecoin, Hedera and Solana products that October, Bitwise's Solana staking ETF among them.