Bitwise Asset Administration has filed for a spot Close to ETF with america Securities and Change Fee.
In line with a Could 6 Type S-1 filing, the proposed Bitwise NEAR ETF is designed to present traders direct publicity to the value of the NEAR token by holding precise NEAR tokens in custody.
NEAR is the native token of the Close to Protocol, a layer-1 blockchain recognized for its excessive throughput and energy-efficient proof-of-stake consensus mechanism. Initially launched in 2020, Close to was developed to sort out the blockchain trilemma of scalability, safety, and decentralization via strategies like Nightshade sharding.
Bitwise’s fund would monitor the CF NEAR-Greenback Settlement Value benchmark, calculated by CF Benchmarks, and use Coinbase Custody Belief Firm as its custodian.
The ETF is structured as a Delaware statutory belief and can concern shares that symbolize fractional possession of the NEAR tokens it holds. Bitwise registered a Delaware statutory belief linked to the NEAR ETF on April 28.
Bitwise is not going to use derivatives or energetic buying and selling methods and can deal with creation and redemption of shares in money, with redemptions and purchases performed by approved monetary members.
For the ETF to maneuver ahead, Bitwise should additionally submit a 19b-4 type, which formally initiates the SEC’s overview course of. The submitting doesn’t but embrace the ETF’s ticker or the alternate it seeks to record on.
After information of the submitting broke, NEAR rallied roughly 5.7%. At press time, it had misplaced among the positive aspects and was down 1.6% at $2.29.
Bitwise’s NEAR ETF joins a growing list of altcoin-based ETF purposes submitted in 2025. Different pending filings embrace ETFs for Solana (SOL), Cardano (ADA), Chainlink (LINK), Dogecoin (DOGE), Hedera (HBAR), and Avalanche (AVAX), amongst others.
In the meantime, Bitwise itself has filed for DOGE and SOL ETFs and at the moment manages spot Bitcoin and Ether ETFs listed on NYSE Arca, which have collectively attracted over $2.3 billion in inflows since launch.
The flood of recent purposes comes because the SEC continues to delay decisions on a number of proposed ETFs. Simply final month, the Fee prolonged overview deadlines for Bitwise’s Bitcoin and Ethereum ETFs, a separate product providing publicity to each belongings, in addition to Canary Capital’s Hedera ETF, pushing choices to June.
Grayscale’s software to transform its Polkadot trust to an ETF and Canary’s Litecoin ETF submitting have additionally been pushed back.
With reference to Canary’s Litecoin ETF, the fee mentioned it desires to know if the Litecoin ETF “raises any new or novel considerations not beforehand contemplated by the Fee.”
In associated information, crypto-friendly Paul Atkins just lately replaced Gary Gensler as SEC chair, raising hopes of a extra open stance towards digital asset merchandise. Nevertheless, the company has but to concern any main approvals underneath his tenure.
