AI Summary
5 min readThe first Bitwise Near ETF (ticker: NRR) launched in early 2026 and saw roughly $10 million in daily inflows and $10–20 million in daily trading volume in its first three days — a strong start that Bitwise’s Hunter Horsley describes as “extraordinarily strong relative to other ETFs that have launched this year,” including for assets with larger market caps. The ETF’s arrival caps a multi-year relationship between Bitwise and the Near protocol, one that began with institutional research coverage over a year ago, expanded into an ETP in Europe, and deepened when Bitwise became the fourth-largest validator on the network and began contributing to the intents infrastructure via an MPC (multi-party computation) setup.
What makes Near Intents a revenue-generating machine
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What you'll learn
- 1 Timestamped Navigation Outline: Why the Near $NRR ETF is Different
- 2 (00:12) **Context & Welcome** - Sal Ternullo (Sovereign) and Hunter Horsley (Bitwise) join to discuss the first Near ETF
- 3 (02:44) **Bitwise's Deep Integration with Near** - How Bitwise became the fourth largest Near validator before launching the ETF
- 4 (06:41) **Why Bitwise's Hands-On Approach Matters** - Sal explains how Bitwise's infrastructure role sets them apart from passive ETF issuers
- 5 (08:11) **NRR ETF Early Performance** - $50M in inflows in the first three days
- 6 (09:33) **Pitching Near to Mainstream Investors** - How Bitwise explains NRR to non-crypto-native clients
- 7 (12:18) **Near Intents 101** - How Near Intents capture value for the protocol and token
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
NEAR just got a new institutional gateway, but the ETF may only be the beginning of the story. Bitwise CEO Hunter Horsley and Sovereign’s Sal Ternullo join David to unpack why investors are starting to view NEAR through the lens of AI, how NEAR Intents has already processed more than $32 billion in volume, what staking and token buybacks mean for the asset, and why a future filled with many AI models, chains, agents, and stablecoins could play directly into NEAR’s strengths.
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TIMESTAMPS
0:00 NEAR’s New ETF
2:15 Bitwise and NEAR
8:49 Selling NEAR to Investors
12:18 Intents and Buybacks
20:23 Staking and ETF Demand
26:34 The AI Opportunity
33:11 Many Models, Many Chains
38:37 AI Privacy
42:48 Closing Thoughts
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RESOURCES
Sal Ternullo
https://x.com/sal_ternullo
Hunter Horsley
https://x.com/HHorsley
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