NEAR cryptocurrency jumps as Bitwise ETF moves closer to launch

NEAR cryptocurrency jumped Sunday, extending a sharp rally as investors reacted to progress toward the launch of a U.S. exchange-traded fund tied to the digital asset.NEAR rose more than 7% Sunday to around $5, reaching its highest level in about a year. The token has gained roughly 50% in the past week, far outpacing Bitcoin and much of the broader cryptocurrency market.One catalyst is the Bitwise NEAR ETF, which is expected to trade on the NYSE Arca under the ticker NRR. Bitwise filed a final prospectus for the fund on Sept. 24, while an SEC filing shows that NYSE Arca has approved its application for listing. The fund's registration became effective the same day.The ETF would give investors a way to gain exposure to NEAR through a conventional brokerage account without having to buy and store cryptocurrency themselves. The fund will hold NEAR directly and also plans to earn additional tokens by staking its holdings, a process similar to earning rewards for helping operate the network.A successful ETF could also create a new source of demand for NEAR because the fund must acquire the cryptocurrency to back its shares. How much that matters will depend on how much money investors ultimately put into the ETF.NEAR has also benefited from growing interest in its underlying network. NEAR Intents, technology designed to make it easier to move and trade assets across different blockchains, has processed more than $30 billion in cross-chain volume. NEAR this month also partnered with Ondo Finance to make tokenized versions of U.S. stocks and ETFs available through the system.The rally has attracted speculative traders as well. Open interest in NEAR futures recently climbed to about $1.56 billion, according to CoinGlass data cited by ETHNews, suggesting traders are making increasingly large leveraged bets on the token.That leaves the upcoming ETF as a key test for the rally. Strong investor inflows could provide fresh demand for NEAR, while weak demand could raise questions about whether the recent price surge has gotten ahead of the fundamentals.Content provided by Seeking Alpha is intended for information purposes only, and that Seeking Alpha does not offer any personalist investment advice and is not a licensed securities dealer, broker, US investment adviser or investment bank.