Bitwise has launched the first US spot exchange-traded product tracking NEAR, with the fund beginning trading Tuesday on NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR.

The fund carries a 0.75% annual management fee and holds NEAR directly. Bitwise also plans to stake the fund's tokens, generating additional NEAR for shareholders through the fund's net asset value. The launch expands the asset manager's lineup of single-asset crypto funds as it bets on the blockchain's role in an emerging AI-driven economy.

The debut caps a regulatory process that ran more than a year. Bitwise filed the fund's S-1 registration statement with the SEC in May 2025. NYSE Arca approved the shares for listing on September 24, and the SEC registration became effective the same day.

Bitwise is pitching NEAR as infrastructure for a future in which AI agents increasingly make payments, trade assets and carry out financial transactions on behalf of users.

A central part of that thesis rests on NEAR Intents, the network's crosschain transaction system. Bitwise said the protocol has processed more than $32 billion in volume, up from less than $1 billion a year ago. NEAR's own dashboard currently shows more than $30 billion in lifetime volume across 35 chains.

"NEAR sits at the intersection of two of the biggest trends in technology: AI and crypto," Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said, arguing that autonomous agents will need fast settlement infrastructure that does not rely on a single custodian.

Unlike a traditional spot product that simply tracks the underlying token, NRR plans to put its NEAR holdings to work through staking. Bitwise estimates average NEAR staking rewards at roughly 5%, although investors will not receive that full headline rate.

The fund's SEC filing states that under normal circumstances it expects to stake substantially all of its NEAR, with 33% of the additional tokens generated through staking allocated to staking-related expenses. The trust retains approximately 67% of the rewards, which flow into its NAV.

Those staking economics come on top of NRR's 0.75% annual sponsor fee, charged against the fund's NEAR holdings.

Bitwise already offers similar exposure in Europe. Its NEAR Staking ETP began trading on Deutsche Börse Xetra in July 2025 and held about $52.3 million in assets under management as of September 11. The European product carries a 0.85% annual expense ratio and also incorporates staking rewards.

The US launch places NEAR alongside Bitwise's growing suite of single-asset crypto products covering Bitcoin, Ether, Solana, XRP and Hyperliquid.

The listing also arrives as NEAR pushes beyond its original Layer 1 positioning toward infrastructure designed for crosschain liquidity and AI agents. NEAR Intents abstracts transactions across different blockchains, allowing applications and agents to execute crosschain swaps without users manually interacting with bridges or managing gas on each network.

Bitwise's SEC prospectus lists exposure to NEAR as the fund's primary investment objective, with generating additional NEAR through staking as its secondary objective.

With registration now effective and staking features embedded from day one, NRR sets a template for how single-asset crypto ETFs may increasingly pair passive exposure with yield generation as issuers compete for institutional flows.