Bitwise launches first US spot NEAR ETF on NYSE Arca under ticker NRR
In brief
- Bitwise's NEAR ETF trades on NYSE Arca under ticker NRR with a 0.75% management fee.
- The fund holds NEAR directly, and Bitwise plans to stake a significant portion of its tokens.
- NEAR gained about 167% over the past month to roughly $4.94, per CoinGecko.
- NEAR Intents volume topped $32 billion, up from under $1 billion a year earlier, per Bitwise.
What NRR holds
The structure is simple: the fund holds spot NEAR directly and stakes part of it. NRR joins Bitwise's US lineup of single-asset crypto products, which already covers Bitcoin (BITB), Ether (ETHW), Solana (BSOL), XRP (XRP) and Hyperliquid (BHYP).
This isn't Bitwise's first NEAR product. Chief investment officer Matt Hougan told Cointelegraph that the firm has been working on the US ETF since it launched a European NEAR exchange-traded product in June 2025.
NEAR is a layer-1 blockchain for decentralized apps. It shifted its strategy toward AI in 2024. According to CoinGecko data, the token gained about 167% over the past month to trade around $4.94 on Tuesday, and it's up about 81% over the past year.
The Intents pitch
A big part of Bitwise's case rests on NEAR Intents, a system where users and AI agents specify the transaction they want while third-party solvers compete to execute it across supported blockchains. According to Bitwise, Intents volume rose to more than $32 billion, up from less than $1 billion a year earlier.
That's a steep climb.
Hougan told Cointelegraph that Bitwise sees AI agents as a growing use case for NEAR and has already seen evidence of agents using the network. Cointelegraph noted that most activity on NEAR is still human-driven (so the agent story is early-stage). Speaking about cross-chain transfers, Hougan said:
"Bridging and cross-chain abstraction has been a challenge for crypto for nearly a decade, and a lot of people have lost both time and money trying to navigate that space"
Bitwise isn't the only large manager talking about AI agents. In a research paper, BlackRock said AI agents could increase demand for stablecoins, cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets, and it described AI as a potential "structural catalyst" for digital asset adoption.
Bitget hack exposure
According to a statement reported by Cointelegraph, NEAR Intents blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers linked to the $387.5 million Bitget hack. The protocol said its SHIELD system froze about $503,000. Roughly $166,000 in suspected stolen funds still passed through.
Those figures come from NEAR Intents itself. They show that a system built to move value across chains quickly also has to deal with stolen funds moving through it.
Frequently asked questions
What are the ticker and fee for Bitwise's NEAR ETF?
The Bitwise NEAR ETF trades on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR. It has a 0.75% management fee and holds NEAR directly. Bitwise plans to stake a significant portion of the fund's tokens.
How does NEAR Intents work?
NEAR Intents lets users and AI agents specify the transaction they want. Third-party solvers then compete to execute it across supported blockchains. According to Bitwise, Intents volume rose to more than $32 billion from less than $1 billion a year earlier.
