Grayscale files for NEAR ETF as major altcoins bleed – What’s next?
The push to present Wall Road direct entry to Layer-1 blockchains is rising.
After a 12 months of main ETF filings tied to Solana [SOL] and Ripple [XRP], Grayscale Investments has now turned its consideration to NEAR Protocol [NEAR].
In a Type S-1 filed with the U.S. Securities and Change Fee (SEC) on the twentieth of January, Grayscale introduced plans to transform its present Close to Belief right into a spot ETF.
The proposed product might be renamed the Grayscale Close to Belief ETF, signaling that NEAR is shifting past a developer-focused mission and into the institutional highlight.
Particulars of Grayscale Close to Belief ETF
As per the submitting, Grayscale plans to improve the Grayscale Close to Belief (GSNR) from the OTCQB over-the-counter market to the NYSE Arca alternate.
The agency is following its normal technique, starting with non-public placements for accredited traders, shifting into public buying and selling, and in the end looking for full spot ETF approval.
After the conversion, the ETF will give traders direct publicity to NEAR, the native token of the Close to Protocol, via common brokerage accounts.
This construction removes most of the issues linked to non-public trusts, together with low liquidity and monitoring errors. That stated, Grayscale has constructed the proposed ETF with assist from main institutional companions.
Coinbase Custody Belief Firm will safeguard the NEAR tokens, whereas BNY Mellon will handle administration and switch providers.
Further options
The submitting additionally highlights staking as a key function of the proposed ETF. In contrast to Bitcoin [BTC] ETFs, this fund plans to stake NEAR tokens on the community.
This method may permit the fund to earn staking rewards that could be shared with traders, topic to regulatory approval.
This improvement comes as NEAR’s worth faces short-term stress. At press time, the token was buying and selling round $1.53, down 1.84% over the previous 24 hours as per CoinMarketCap.
Nonetheless, the drop seems tied to broader market weak spot, pushed by President Trump’s tariff actions involving Greenland and a number of other European international locations.
On the identical time, the altcoin ETF market is changing into more and more divided.
Altcoin ETFs evaluation
Data from SoSoValue exhibits combined institutional flows. Solana and Chainlink [LINK] noticed small inflows of $3.08 million and $4.05 million.
In the meantime, Ethereum [ETH] skilled heavy outflows of almost $230 million, adopted by XRP at $53.32 million and smaller exits from Dogecoin [DOGE].
This means traders are actively shifting capital moderately than exiting crypto altogether.
For sure, NEAR just isn’t alone on this race. Just lately, the Bitwise Chainlink ETF additionally bought launched on NYSE Arca on the 14th of January.
Total, the fast-growing ETF area means that 2026 is not going to have a single dominant winner. As a substitute, it might be formed by a wider group of institutional-grade altcoins.
Remaining Ideas
- Grayscale’s transfer makes it simpler for conventional traders to entry NEAR with out coping with wallets or non-public trusts.
- For NEAR, this submitting is a place to begin, not the end line, with execution now changing into the important thing focus.
