Bitwise launches first US spot NEAR ETF with staking built in
Ecosystem ·
The fund, trading as NRR on NYSE Arca, stakes all its NEAR holdings and keeps 67% of the resulting rewards for the trust.
Bitwise's new NEAR Protocol exchange-traded fund began trading Tuesday on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR, marking what the company calls the first US spot ETF for the token, according to cryptopotato.com. The fund carries a 0.75% annual management fee, holds NEAR directly, and uses Coinbase Custody as custodian. Its registration with the SEC took effect on September 24, following an initial filing in May 2025.
The product's structure centers on staking economics. Bitwise plans to stake the entirety of the fund's NEAR holdings, but the trust retains only 67% of the rewards generated; the remaining 33% goes toward staking costs, split among the staking agent, Coinbase Custody, and Bitwise itself. That staking agent is expected to be Attestant, described in the prospectus as a Bitwise affiliate. The arrangement is notably steeper than the cost structures on two of Bitwise's other staked products — its Hyperliquid ETF allocates 25% of rewards to expenses, and its Avalanche ETF sets that figure at 12%, even though both of those funds charge a lower 0.34% management fee.
The staking design also carries a practical tradeoff for investors: because staked NEAR takes roughly 48 hours to unlock under normal conditions, the prospectus warns that redemptions from the fund could be slowed as a result. Bitwise has framed NEAR's positioning around AI-related use cases, citing NEAR Intents, the network's cross-chain transaction protocol, and pointing to activity that has scaled from under $1 billion in volume a year earlier past $32 billion more recently. The launch adds to a run of similar single-asset staked ETF products from the issuer, and coverage of the debut has also noted market activity elsewhere on NEAR, including a large holder's unrealized gain tied to a multimillion-token position, as flagged on x.com.
Competition in the space remains unsettled. Grayscale's NEAR trust, which trades over-the-counter under the ticker GSNR and charges a 2.5% annual fee, has a pending application filed in January to convert into a spot ETF; a June amendment left the proposed fund's annual fee blank while noting the trust's shares have at times traded well above the value of its underlying NEAR. Additional detail on the NRR launch and its market reception has also been reported by theblock.co and leviathan.news. Not yet known is when, or whether, the SEC will act on Grayscale's conversion request, or what fee that fund would ultimately carry if approved.