Bitwise and Sovereign Launch Spot NEAR ETP on NYSE Arca as AI and Intent Growth Accelerate
Bitwise has introduced the first US spot NEAR exchange-traded product (NRR) on NYSE Arca, featuring native staking yields and a 0.75% management fee. On The Roll Up, Bitwise's Matt Hougan and Sovereign's Sal Ternullo explained how expanding intent revenue and NEAR's private AI inference stack are driving institutional interest.
Bitwise Asset Management and Sovereign have launched the first spot NEAR exchange-traded product in the United States, trading under the ticker NRR on NYSE Arca. The ETP carries a 75-basis-point management fee and incorporates in-house staking designed to target roughly 5% annual rewards that accrue directly to shareholders through the product's net asset value (NAV). Speaking on The Roll Up podcast, Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan and Sovereign's Sal Ternullo stated that the fund's debut comes as institutional investors increasingly demand fundamentals-driven digital assets that combine existing product-market fit with scalable growth potential.
Fundamentals Driving NEAR's Repricing
According to Ternullo and Hougan, NEAR’s recent market outperformance stems from a convergence of intent-based revenue generation and strategic positioning within decentralized artificial intelligence. NEAR Intents has established measurable on-chain revenue by abstracting cross-chain friction for users, offering traditional investors a clear bottom-up valuation framework. Concurrently, NEAR’s privacy-preserving AI infrastructure—such as its private inference technology powering open-source models—has seen accelerating token consumption. Hougan noted that while cross-chain intents provide immediate cash-flow metrics, NEAR's agentic AI stack serves as high-upside optionality as frontier AI models face growing scrutiny over user privacy and data sovereignty.
Evolving Tokenomics and 24/7 Market Infrastructure
The speakers also detailed ongoing adjustments to NEAR’s economic model, including a governance proposal to reduce token inflation from 2.5% to 1.6% over a two-year schedule. This follows a previous reduction from 5% to 2.5% and coincides with discussions around programmatic buybacks funded by network revenues. Looking at broader market trends, Hougan argued that digital assets have entered a new bull market marked by significant price dispersion based on individual project fundamentals rather than speculative market-wide rallies. Furthermore, as traditional finance moves toward 24/7 tokenized markets, both executives emphasized that automated AI agents running on decentralized networks will eventually become critical for managing liquidity, risk, and settlements during off-hours.