NEAR falls to $4.312 as market tracks Bitwise fund after September launch
Key Facts
NEARUSD closed at $4.312 on October 29, 2026, down from $4.734 in the previous session, according to EL7 data, as the market continues to track the Bitwise NEAR ETF after it began trading in the United States in September. This timeline corrects the impression that the fund launched on October 29; it began trading on September 29, its actual launch date. NYSE Arca's filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on September 28 documented the approval of the listing and registration of the shares. The fund gives investors spot exposure to the value of the NEAR it holds, with a secondary objective of earning additional tokens through staking. That places the product among single-asset digital funds, while NEAR's price movement remains separate from the fund's launch date.
A price comparison shows NEAR closed at $4.884 on October 22, before ending the October 29 session at $4.312. The October 28 close was also $4.734, putting the price lower in the following session. These readings offer a picture of the token's move over a week and from one session to the next, during a period following the fund's start of trading. Price data alone do not establish that the fund caused the move or that its trading added liquidity to the NEAR market. The fund remains an investment vehicle that tracks the value of the asset it holds, while the token's price reflects the broader market.
The registration statement says the primary investment objective is to provide exposure to the value of the NEAR tokens held by the fund, after expenses, while the secondary objective is to derive additional NEAR through staking. Bitwise said it intends to stake in-house through its institutional team, making staking part of the fund's strategy from launch rather than a plan deferred to an unspecified date. The statement designates the CME CF US Dollar–NEAR Reference Rate, New York Variant, as the benchmark for calculating net asset value. This approach separates the value of the fund's holdings from the method used to calculate the net asset value of its shares. The objective of earning additional tokens does not mean staking rewards are guaranteed or that the network's gross yield equals the fund's net return after expenses.
The fund's strategy comes as the NEAR Foundation said on February 24, 2026, that an upgrade had cut the annual inflation cap by 50% and that supply had become fully unlocked. On the same date, the foundation said NEAR Intents had exceeded $13 billion in cross-chain settlement volume. The official NEAR Intents website later showed cumulative volume of more than $33 billion across 36 chains, according to data displayed when checked on October 29. The NEAR revenue dashboard, updated that day, also showed $57.02 million in gross fees generated. These figures provide context on the network's development and use, but they do not represent flows into the fund or measure the return it delivered to holders.
The registration statement highlights the risks associated with the fund's concentration in a single digital asset. NEAR's historical annualized volatility was 118.95%, while its maximum annual price decline reached 93.73% as of June 29, 2026. The statement warned that future price volatility could adversely affect the shares' value and that they could lose a substantial part or all of their value. This means the staking mechanism does not eliminate exposure to token volatility, and the fund's secondary objective does not remove the possibility of loss. The October 29 close of $4.312 is the latest comparison available here, following a close of $4.884 a week earlier.