Why the Near $NRR ETF is Different | Hunter Horsley and Sal Ternullo

David Hoffman (0:03)

Bankless Nation, I am here with Sal from Sovereign. Sal is going back onto the podcast after we had him on five or six months ago to talk about Sovereign and NEAR. Sal, welcome back to Bankless.

Sal Ternullo (0:13)

Thanks for having me, David.

David Hoffman (0:14)

And I also am joined by Hunter from Bitwise. Bitwise just released the first, I believe, NEAR ETF. Hunter, congratulations on that. And also welcome back to Bankless.

Sal Ternullo (0:23)

Thank you.

Hunter Horsley (0:23)

Thank you. Yeah, fun to be with you guys.

David Hoffman (0:25)

Or Hunter, is this your first time on Bankless? We usually have Matt and Ryan on. Is this your first time?

Hunter Horsley (0:30)

Oh my gosh.

That might be possible. I don't know.

Ryan Sean Adams (0:34)

Seems odd.

Hunter Horsley (0:35)

Yeah. Yeah, that feels wrong to me, but it might be right.

Ryan Sean Adams (0:37)

I'll have to look into the archive.

David Hoffman (0:39)

Either way, it's a pleasure to have you on.

OK, NEAR just got its first ETF from Bitwise. That's the topic of the day. But I also want to just talk a little bit more about NEAR as a treasury asset. The first time we talked about this on Bankless was with Sal, as I mentioned, back in February, I think. Sal, the sound bite that reverberates in my brain to this day was you saying something along the lines of, based off of the current human usage of the NEAR blockchain and NEAR Intents, I think NEAR is 2 to 4X underpriced at human levels of adoption. And that gets before anything around AI agents or how NEAR is at the intersection of AI and crypto. When you said that NEAR was a dollar and some change or something and just trading today, just shy of $5 after hitting $5.5. So you got to tip the hat to you, Sal, for being ahead of the curve here. Tell me, just give me the last simulation of your life in the last like four or five months as NEAR activity and attention has just crescendoed so much.

Sal Ternullo (1:37)

Yeah, I mean, honestly, it feels, and I think it's not just for me, it's to the entire ecosystem, the entire developer community. Yeah, there is an incredible amount of energy and effort that is focused on building and advancing NEAR. And across that entire ecosystem, I think everybody has felt some validation and vindication from the market and recognition. You know, I get the fortunate opportunity to be a spokesperson speaking on behalf of our shared conviction around the asset. And I'm happy to see obviously how prices have shaped out.

But it definitely feels like a moment where we need to seize momentum and continue to scale both the intense product and the NEAR AI side. So excited to get into those things as well.

David Hoffman (2:15)

Now, Hunter, as soon as NEAR really caught a bunch of momentum and with the price action in recent weeks and months, Bitwise comes in with the NEAR ETF. Maybe people are looking at that at a surface level and saying like, okay, well, NEAR's got attention, so Bitwise issues the ETF immediately.

Maybe that's the case, but I think that underserves how integrated Bitwise has been in the NEAR ecosystem and has been for a long time. Maybe you could just illustrate for me and the listeners the history that Bitwise has had with NEAR.

Hunter Horsley (2:44)

So, I'm delighted for this juncture of the journey where the Bitwise NEAR ETF, which has the fund-ticker NRR, is live. But you're right, have observed NEAR for a long time, saw what Sal was doing with Sovrin, the incredible execution of the team and conviction of the community for a long time. We wrote institutional research coverage and valuation analysis, I believe over a year ago now. Introduced an ETP in Europe.

And then through the on-chain solutions part of our business started contributing to the network directly as a staking provider. Today, I believe the fourth largest validator on NEAR. And then had the opportunity to work also on Intents with an MPC.

And then ultimately, the more recent and topical development, which is the introduction of NRR and the opening of an ETF as an avenue for investors to participate in NEAR. So I think that NEAR is one of the most exciting teams and projects for lack of a better term in the crypto space. And we felt that way for a long time. These things didn't happen over night. So very delighted to get to contribute in different ways to what we think has such great potential.

David Hoffman (4:16)