Bitwise listed the first U.S. spot NEAR Protocol (NEAR) ETF on September 29. On the first day of listing, net inflows totaled $35.5 million.
Key content
The stock ticker is NRR, and it is listed on NYSE Arca. The annual management fee is 0.75%.
Bitwise has its internal team directly stake a substantial portion of the NEAR held by the fund, aiming for returns close to the current network reward rate of around 5% per year.
As of its first trading day, assets under management (AUM) were $36 million, and trading volume was $15.1 million.
NEAR ETF performance on the first day
The Bitwise NEAR ETF trades on the NYSE Arca under the NRR ticker, providing U.S. investors with a spot NEAR investment route through an exchange-traded product (ETF). Bitwise explained that for its 0.75% annual management fee, “If you invest $1,000, the cost is about $7.50 per year, excluding other expenses.”
The asset manager, Bitwise, plans to stake a substantial portion of the NEAR it holds in the fund directly through an institutional-dedicated staking team. The goal is to secure rewards close to the network’s current annual rate of about 5%. However, these rewards are not guaranteed returns, and Bitwise explicitly noted the risks associated with staking, including censorship (slashing) risk and operational risk. In addition, the fund holds only a single cryptocurrency, meaning investors are directly exposed to NEAR price fluctuations.
On the first trading day, net inflows of $35.5 million were recorded in the NRR, trading volume was $15.1 million, and assets under management were $36.0 million. With this listing, NEAR newly joined Bitwise’s lineup of single-crypto ETFs operated in the United States.
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Bitwise’s logic of the AI & agent economy
Bitwise CEO **Hunter Horsley** tied this NEAR ETF to the company’s “AI agent economy” vision. According to his explanation, a future will come in which AI agents will trade and coordinate among various digital services on their own, and “NEAR is building the platform for that future.” Bitwise defines this as the emergence of an “agentic economy.”
At the center of this logic is NEAR Intents. In this system, when a user or AI agent requests a desired transaction, third-party solvers execute it competitively across various blockchains. In short, end users can use services based on outcomes without having to deal with complex bridging processes or decide which chain to choose.
According to Bitwise, the product’s cumulative processed transaction volume has grown from less than $1 billion a year ago to over $32 billion today. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer (CIO) **Matt Hougan** said, “The bridging problem and cross-chain abstraction have been challenges for the crypto industry for nearly 10 years.”
This ETF listing took place immediately after the NEAR token—the underlying asset—surged. NEAR began at about $1.93 on August 28 and rose to about $5.39 by September 28, up roughly 179%, and the closing price on September 29 was formed around the $4.89 level. In other words, the ETF launched at a time when market interest in NEAR had already become unusually high due to this rally.
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