Bitwise Debuts America's First NEAR Protocol Spot ETF Following Token Rally
The investment firm Bitwise has introduced America's inaugural spot NEAR ETF, providing market participants with token access while NEAR Protocol intensifies its AI agent and cross-blockchain transaction initiatives.
Digital asset management firm Bitwise has introduced the United States' inaugural spot exchange-traded product that tracks NEAR, providing market participants with token exposure via a fund that trades on the NYSE Arca exchange.
Trading under the ticker symbol NRR, the Bitwise NEAR ETF features a management fee of 0.75% and will maintain direct holdings in NEAR, with the firm planning to stake a substantial amount of the tokens held within the fund.
The product debut arrives amid a substantial uptick in activity occurring on NEAR Intents, the blockchain's protocol for executing cross-chain transactions, with transaction volume climbing to exceed $32 billion in contrast to the less than $1 billion recorded one year earlier, as reported by Bitwise.
Speaking with Cointelegraph, Bitwise chief investment officer Matt Hougan stated that the company views AI agents as an emerging application for NEAR and has already observed instances of agents utilizing the network. He anticipates that such activity will grow progressively, though the majority of current network activity continues to be driven by human users.
Hougan further noted that Bitwise has been developing the US NEAR ETF since it introduced its European NEAR exchange-traded product in June 2025. The NRR product now joins the company's US collection of single-asset cryptocurrency products that track Bitcoin (BITB), Ether (ETHW), Solana (BSOL), XRP (XRP) and Hyperliquid (BHYP).
The NEAR token has experienced a dramatic rally throughout the previous month, climbing approximately 167% to reach trading levels around $4.94 on Tuesday, based on data from CoinGecko. Over the past twelve months, the token has posted gains of roughly 81%.
AI agents put crypto payment rails in focus
NEAR operates as a layer-1 blockchain designed for decentralized applications that pivoted its strategic direction toward artificial intelligence in 2024 and has subsequently concentrated increasingly on cross-blockchain infrastructure and autonomous artificial intelligence agents.
This strategic pivot emerges as leading financial institutions explore how autonomous software applications might fuel demand for blockchain-powered payment infrastructure. In a research document released last week, BlackRock indicated that AI agents could potentially drive increased demand for stablecoins, cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets as transactions between machines become increasingly prevalent.
In its analysis, BlackRock characterized AI as a possible "structural catalyst" for digital asset adoption, making the case that programmable assets could prove well-suited for high-frequency, low-value transactions that function continuously throughout the day and night.
NEAR aims to capture a portion of this emerging activity through its Intents protocol, which enables users and AI agents to define a desired transaction outcome while third-party solvers engage in competition to fulfill it across the various supported blockchain networks.
The design of Intents, for instance, aligns with the goal-based orientation of LLMs, and shields them from the complexity of bridging and other challenges.
Matt Hougan, Bitwise chief investment officer
Hougan also highlighted cross-chain usability as a crucial element driving the expansion of Intents. "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," he said.
The protocol's function in facilitating asset movement across different blockchains gained attention this week following NEAR Intents' announcement that it prevented more than $50 million in attempted fund transfers connected to the $387.5 million Bitget hack. The platform's SHIELD system successfully froze approximately $503,000 during the execution phase, while around $166,000 in funds suspected to be stolen managed to pass through the protocol.