NEAR price breaks out after Bitwise adds staking to ETF filing
NEAR moved higher on July 3, rising almost 12% to $2.04 after Bitwise filed a second amendment for its proposed spot NEAR ETF. The line traders cared about was simple: staking is now in the filing. My take: that is the whole trade, at least for now. If the SEC approves it, the fund could earn rewards on the NEAR it holds. For a token stuck under resistance since mid-June, the timing was not subtle.
Bitwise submitted the revised S-1 registration statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing lists staking as a secondary objective for the fund. In plain terms, the ETF would track the value of NEAR in the trust and try to earn staking rewards on top of that. NYSE Arca is the planned listing venue. The Bank of New York Mellon would hold cash. Coinbase Custody would hold the digital assets. Bitwise has not listed the ticker or management fee yet. The proposal now sits with the SEC.
This is where it gets less tidy. Most ETF headlines make approval sound binary: spot exposure good, SEC decision next. That is only half right. A staking ETF is harder to approve than a plain spot fund because it drags yield mechanics into a regulated wrapper. Bitcoin ETFs, approved in January 2024, opened the door for large crypto funds, helped pull in billions, and pushed BTC above $73,000 by March. NEAR is not Bitcoin. It is smaller, less liquid, and easier to swing on a narrative. Still, if the SEC lets staking sit inside an ETF, even for one proof-of-stake asset, traders will start asking, “Who gets one next?” Why does that matter? Because that question can move before the legal answer arrives.
The amendment arrived just as NEAR was testing a level short term traders cared about. On July 3, NEAR Protocol ($NEAR) rose nearly 12% to about $2.04, adding to a rebound that began earlier in the week. The move took the token above a descending trendline that had capped rallies since the mid-June peak near $2.56. It also put NEAR back above the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement around $2.04. I will be honest: that is the kind of level traders pretend not to obsess over, then trade anyway. It works.
Momentum has improved too, but I would not dress it up as certainty. The MACD has flipped bullish, and the positive histogram is rising. The Aroon indicator shows Aroon Up at 100 and Aroon Down near 14, a sign of strong short term buying pressure. Analyst Michael van de Poppe, who added to his NEAR position near $1.82, said NEAR is “clearly breaking back into an uptrend” after holding support near EUR1.70, or roughly $2.00. He sees a possible move toward EUR2.20 to EUR2.30, about $2.58 to $2.70, if that area keeps holding. Yes, this slightly contradicts the clean-breakout read above: the chart looks better, but it still has to prove it above the next resistance levels.
SCOOP: Biwtise amends its S-1 for spot $NEAR ETF
Bitwise submitted the 2nd amendment after almost a year
Adds Staking as a secondary objective
Names NYSE Arca for listing and trading spot $NEAR ETF
The Bank of New York Mellon is selected as cash custodian
Coinbase… pic.twitter.com/bYNRZAN45P, Rednirav (@CryptoRednirav) July 3, 2026
Bitwise is not alone here. Grayscale has also filed an amended registration statement for its own proposed spot NEAR ETF. One filing can be shrugged off. Two filings are harder to ignore. In my view, the important part is not just “another crypto ETF,” but whether asset managers can package NEAR for regulated markets without stripping out the staking feature that makes it different. Is that automatically useful for investors? No. The answer depends on the fees, the staking mechanics, SEC wording, custody terms, and redemption details. Those are not side notes.
What this means
The Bitwise filing matters because of the staking language. Fund issuers are not just trying to put token price exposure inside a familiar ETF structure. They are trying to carry the token’s yield mechanics into the product too. Counter to the usual advice, that extra complexity may be the point rather than the problem. It could make staking easier for investors who do not want to manage wallets or validators themselves. It could also give regulators more to object to. Both are true.
For NEAR traders, the levels are fairly clear. If the breakout holds, resistance is near $2.14 and $2.24, then around $2.36. After that, the June high near $2.56 is back in play. The old breakout zone around $1.90 is the first support area I would watch. Skip this step and the chart gets noisy fast. Outside NEAR, the bigger signal will be how the SEC talks about staking in ETF filings. One favorable line could be enough to wake up the rest of the proof-of-stake trade.