Bitwise Amends NEAR ETF Filing to Add Staking and Name NYSE Arca and Custodians

Overview

• Bitwise submitted a second amended S-1 on July 2, 2026 that adds staking as a secondary objective for its proposed spot NEAR Protocol ETF while the registration remains under SEC review.
• The filing names NYSE Arca as the planned listing venue, The Bank of New York Mellon as cash custodian, administrator and transfer agent, and Coinbase Custody as crypto custodian, and says Bitwise will provide seed capital.
• Bitwise did not disclose a ticker symbol or management fee in the amendment, so final product terms and launch timing are unresolved and depend on further filings and SEC approval.
• NEAR’s market price jumped roughly 12% and broke short-term technical resistance on July 3, 2026 as the filing coincided with renewed buying and competing issuer activity such as Grayscale’s separate NEAR filing.
• Including staking inside a regulated fund raises concrete operational, tax and liquidity issues because the fund must show how it will capture rewards, report taxes, enable redemptions and manage validator operations for investor holdings.