Bitwise throws NEAR ETF in race for SEC approval with S-1 filing

Digital asset manager Bitwise has filed to list a spot Near exchange-traded fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adding to a growing list of altcoins currently vying to win regulatory approval. The Bitwise Near ( NEAR ) ETF will track the price movements of the NEAR token, minus expenses, through a traditional brokerage, Bitwise’s May 6 registration statement shows . Bitwise named Coinbase Custody as the proposed custodian of the Bitwise NEAR ETF. The management fee, ticker and stock exchange it seeks to list on weren’t named yet. Source: Cointelegraph Bitwise must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator’s approval process for the fund. The crypto native asset manager indicated it would make such a filing when it registered a trust linked to the NEAR ETF in Delaware on April 28. NEAR joins a pile of spot crypto ETFs on the SEC’s desk The SEC now has at least a dozen spot crypto ETFs to review in 2025, including applications for Litecoin ( LTC ), Dogecoin ( DOGE ), Solana ( SOL ), XRP ( XRP ), Cardano ( ADA ), Hedera ( HBAR ), Polkadot ( DOT ), Chainlink ( LINK ), Avalanche ( AVAX ), Aptos ( APT ) and Sui ( SUI ). Bitwise already has applications out for a spot DOGE, SOL, and XRP ETFs, and also has an approved spot Bitcoin ( BTC ) and Ether ( ETH ) ETF, which are listed on the NYSE Arca and have attracted a combined $2.35 billion in net inflows since launching last year. NEAR — the token powering the layer-1 Near blockchain — is the 44th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $2.73 billion, CoinGecko data shows. The Near blockchain was once touted as an Ethereum killer and is considered by its proponents as a solution to the “blockchain trilemma” — the challenge of achieving all three critical aspects of blockchain performance : security, scalability and decentralization. Related: Ethereum’s era of crypto dominance is over — LONGITUDE panel Through Nightshade sharding , Near can process up to 100,000 transactions per second and is secured by 265 active validators, Nearblocks.io data shows. Source: Justin Bons The Near ecosystem shifted from decentralized finance to AI infrastructure in 2024, unveiling plans to build the world’s largest open-source large language model. Magazine: 12 minutes of nail-biting tension when Ethereum’s Pectra fork goes live

Source: CoinTelegraph