Invest1 publisher2 min readPublished
Bitwise's fully staked NEAR fund clears NYSE Arca and the SEC for a U.S. listing
Bitwise's NEAR ETF, ticker NRR, cleared NYSE Arca and the SEC on September 24 to list with 100% of its tokens staked, for a 0.75% annual fee. Holders only beat plain price exposure if staking rewards beat that fee, and one listing tells us less about SEC policy on staking than it appears to.
The Investor · Invest desk
What happened
- The SEC's part was confirming the trust's registration statement effective via Form 8-A, on the same day NYSE Arca approved the listing application.
- NRR is the first U.S. spot ETF tied to NEAR Protocol and will hold the tokens directly.
- Coinbase Custody will hold the NEAR tokens, while BNY Mellon handles cash custody and fund administration.
- Bitwise organized the fund as a Delaware statutory trust in April 2025, about 17 months before the listing approval.
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Why it matters
- cost Holders do better than plain NEAR price exposure only in years when staking rewards, after any share kept by the operators, are above the 0.75% fee.
- precedent Issuers who want staking in their own spot crypto funds can now point to an effective registration for a fund that stakes 100% of its holdings.
- constraint Listing approval is not an endorsement, so the clearance shows that a fully staked design can list. It does not settle how the SEC treats staking yield across spot crypto funds.
Bitwise has set its fee at 0.75% a year [7] on a fund sold on staking rewards earned on top of the token's price [4]. On the planned $500,000 seed basket [10], the fee comes to $3,750 a year [1]. It is charged against the same position that produces the rewards. Crypto Briefing does not report NEAR's staking rate, how rewards reach shareholders, or what share Bitwise or Coinbase Custody keeps.
The seed is small. On July 28, 2026 the trust held 8 shares at $25 each, or $200 of net assets [9]. The planned basket of 20,000 shares for $500,000 [10] keeps the price at $25 a share [2] and multiplies net assets 2,500 times [3]. Bitwise stakes all of it [4]. None of the position sits in cold storage, which is where Crypto Briefing says Bitcoin and Ether ETFs keep their coins [5].
NEAR's price moved ahead of the fund. The token rose roughly 20% within 24 hours of the approval news and about 26% over the following week [11]. The rest of the week therefore added only about 5% to the first day's level [4]. Most of the repricing came on the day of a listing approval that, as Crypto Briefing points out, is not an endorsement of the asset or the security [12].
Two readings fit the record. The broad one says U.S. regulators now accept staking yield inside spot crypto funds, and other issuers will copy NRR's design. The narrow one starts from what actually happened. The SEC accepted the design, or rather confirmed effective a registration for a fund built to stake its whole position, and NYSE Arca approved the listing [1]. Crypto Briefing's point that approval is not endorsement [12] applies to the staking as much as to the token. I think the evidence supports the claim for this fund, and not yet for the whole category. The counter-case is a fair one. An agency that lets a registration go effective for a fund whose stated plan is to stake 100% of its holdings [4] has accepted that plan in practice, whatever it says about endorsement. I am wrong if the next fully staked spot filing goes effective on the same terms, at which point the category claim holds.
What to watch
- Whether NRR starts trading around September 29, and how quickly its assets grow past the 20,000-share seed basket.
- How the fund handles its first large redemption when its entire NEAR position is staked.
- Whether NEAR keeps its roughly 26% gain once NRR trades and new demand has to arrive through share creations.