HIGHLIGHTS NEAR has gained almost half its value in a week and has more than tripled since January. Open interest in NEAR futures has reached the highest level in nearly three years of CoinGl
HIGHLIGHTS
NEAR Protocol traded at $5.24 on Sunday, up 48% over seven days and close to 247% year to date, after NYSE Arca approved the listing application for Bitwise’s spot NEAR ETF on September 24, the same day Bitwise submitted a Form 8-A filing registering the shares for trading on the exchange. Leverage has flooded in behind the rally. Open interest in NEAR futures reached $1.56 billion early on September 27, according to CoinGlass, the highest reading on a chart that reaches back to late 2023.
Open interest measures the total value of futures and perpetual contracts still open across exchanges. Every contract has a buyer and a seller, so the number shows how much capital sits in leveraged bets on the token without showing whether longs or shorts dominate.
NEAR open interest vs. price. Source: CoinGlass
The $1.56 billion reading compares with a market capitalization of $6.85 billion. Outstanding derivatives exposure therefore equals roughly 23% of the token’s entire value, and it also exceeds the $1.31 billion in 24-hour trading volume CoinMarketCap records across exchanges.
Some of the jump is pure arithmetic. When the price doubles, every open contract doubles in dollar terms even if nobody trades. The CoinGlass data shows real new positioning on top of that. In mid-September, with NEAR near $2.35, open interest hovered around $500 million, or roughly 213 million NEAR in contract terms. Sunday’s $1.56 billion at a price of $5.04 works out to about 310 million NEAR.
That is close to 100 million tokens of fresh exposure in less than two weeks.
NEAR open interest at each major peak
Bar length scaled to open interest. NEAR price at the time shown on the right.
March 2024NEAR ~$8.90 ~$460M December 2024NEAR ~$8.00 ~$540M June 2026NEAR ~$2.75 ~$850M September 27, 2026NEAR $5.04 $1.56BHistorical values are approximate, read from the CoinGlass open interest chart.
The contrast with 2024 is stark. NEAR traded near $8.90 in March of that year while futures positioning stayed below $500 million. Today the price is 43% lower and open interest is more than three times higher.
June 2026 is the closest precedent. Open interest spiked to about $850 million as NEAR climbed off its lows, and the price slid back under $2 by August as those positions unwound. The current build-up is almost twice that size, and it comes with a regulatory catalyst the June rally lacked.
The exchange approval and the effective registration clear the way for trading. Bitwise has not confirmed a launch date, though a final 424B3 prospectus typically comes only days before a fund’s first trading session.
How the fund is built matters more for the token than the listing itself. According to the final prospectus, the trust holds NEAR directly, prices its shares against the CME CF NEAR Protocol-Dollar Reference Rate New York Variant, keeps the tokens with Coinbase Custody in segregated accounts and stakes some or all of its holdings to earn additional NEAR.
Ticker
NRR
Sponsor fee
0.75% / yr
Custodian
Coinbase Custody
Creation unit
10,000 shares
Demand reaches the token through creations. Authorized participants create or redeem shares in blocks of 10,000, delivering either NEAR or cash. Each cash creation obliges the trust to buy tokens on the open market, and whatever it stakes then sits behind NEAR’s multi-day unbonding period, which keeps those coins from returning to exchanges at short notice.
Bitwise has published long-term scenarios for the token. Its model values NEAR at $155.85 in a 2030 base case and $562.81 in a maximum case, with a bear case of $1.63.
Bear case
$1.63
About 69% below Sunday’s price
Base case
$155.85
Roughly 30x the current price
Maximum case
$562.81
More than 100x the current price
Bitwise scenarios for 2030. Multiples calculated against the $5.24 spot price.
Crypto analyst Michael van de Poppe endorsed the same bracket on X, putting his base case for NEAR at $150 and above and his bull case at $550 and above.
“I don’t think we’re bullish enough on crypto for the coming years.”Michael van de Poppe, on X
Both sets of numbers need context. Bitwise sponsors the ETF and collects its management fee, so the firm publishing the scenarios has a direct commercial stake in investor interest. Van de Poppe’s figures sit almost exactly on Bitwise’s, so they add sentiment to Bitwise’s model without offering a separate valuation. Holding today’s circulating supply of about 1.3 billion tokens constant, a $155 price implies a market value above $200 billion, and new tokens issued through staking rewards would raise that bar further.
On the 4-hour chart, NEAR has moved inside a rising channel since September 18. Each pullback found buyers at a higher level: near $3.45 on September 20, around $4.05 on September 24 and close to $4.75 early on September 27.
NEAR/USDT 4-hour chart. Source: TradingView, Alexander Stefanov
The breakout attempt failed on Sunday. Price touched $5.44 at the top of the channel, and the 4-hour candle closed 3.3% lower at $5.23. The lower boundary now runs near $5.00, leaving NEAR in the middle of a narrow range.
The 50-period moving average on this timeframe stands at $4.41, about 16% below the price, and roughly marks where traders bought over the past eight days. A drop toward it would push many recent entries into loss. The 200-period average at $2.79 shows where the rally began.
RSI reads 64.5. It went above 80 on September 18 and 19, when the price rose faster than buyers could sustain, and the lower reading now shows that pressure has eased while buyers keep the edge. The heaviest volume of the week arrived on September 23, during a sharp swing inside the channel.
NEAR price map, 4-hour chart $5.44-$5.50Channel ceiling, rejected Sunday’s high $5.23Current price ~$5.00Channel floor, held every dip since Sept 18 $4.4150-period SMA, average cost of recent buyers ~$4.05September 24 low, last major higher lowWith derivatives exposure near a quarter of market value, futures can drive the spot price on their own. A close below the channel floor near $5.00 would put the newest long positions under pressure, and forced liquidations tend to deepen declines during thin weekend sessions. A clean move above $5.50 would squeeze short sellers the same way. Funding rates on perpetual contracts will show which side is more crowded before either scenario plays out.
Bitwise’s launch announcement is the next scheduled catalyst, and the fund’s daily holdings disclosures will show how much NEAR the trust actually buys. When Bitwise launched its staked Solana fund in late October 2025, inflows continued for weeks while SOL’s price fell with the rest of the market. Early creation data for NRR will say more about lasting demand than the listing approval itself.
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