Bitwise drops first US spot $NEAR ETF on NYSE Arca — and yes, it's into AI agents 🤖

Bitwise launched the first US spot exchange-traded product tracking NEAR on Tuesday, listing the Bitwise NEAR ETF on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR with a 0.75% management fee. The fund holds NEAR directly and Bitwise said it intends to stake a significant portion of the fund's tokens, with rewards accruing to shareholders, subject to staking risks including slashing penalties disclosed in fund documents. NRR joins Bitwise's US lineup of single-asset crypto products tracking Bitcoin (BITB), Ether (ETHW), Solana (BSOL), XRP (XRP) and Hyperliquid (BHYP).

The launch comes as activity on NEAR Intents, the network's cross-chain transaction protocol, has increased sharply, with volume rising to more than $32 billion compared with less than $1 billion a year ago, according to Bitwise. Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan said the firm sees AI agents as a growing use case for NEAR and has already seen evidence of agents using the network, though he expects most activity on NEAR to remain human-driven for now. Hougan told Cointelegraph that Bitwise has been working on the US NEAR ETF since launching its European NEAR exchange-traded product in June 2025.

NEAR is a layer-1 blockchain for decentralized applications that shifted its strategy toward AI in 2024 and has since focused increasingly on cross-chain infrastructure and autonomous AI agents. The shift comes as major financial institutions examine how autonomous software could drive demand for blockchain-based payment infrastructure. Last week, BlackRock said in a research paper that AI agents could increase demand for stablecoins, cryptocurrencies and tokenized assets as machine-to-machine transactions become more common, describing AI as a potential "structural catalyst" for digital asset adoption and arguing that programmable assets could be suited to high-frequency, low-value transactions that operate around the clock.

NEAR is seeking to capture some of that activity through Intents, which allows users and AI agents to specify a desired transaction while third-party solvers compete to execute it across supported blockchains. "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," Hougan told Cointelegraph. Hougan also pointed to cross-chain usability as a key factor behind Intents' growth, adding: "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." The protocol's role in moving assets across blockchains came into focus this week after NEAR Intents said it blocked more than $50 million in attempted transfers linked to a recent exploit.

The NEAR token has rallied sharply over the past month, gaining about 167% to trade around $4.94 on Tuesday, according to CoinGecko data. The token is up about 81% over the past year. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley said: "We're moving toward a world in which AI agents increasingly act on our behalf, coordinate with one another, and participate in the economy. 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." Grayscale followed Bitwise's April 2025 Delaware filing by submitting paperwork in January 2026 to convert its existing NEAR trust into an ETF.