Digital asset manager Bitwise has filed to list a spot Near exchange-traded fund with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, adding to a growing list of altcoins currently vying to win regulatory approval.

The Bitwise Near (NEAR) ETF will track the price movements of the NEAR token, minus expenses, through a traditional brokerage, Bitwise’s May 6 registration statement shows.

Bitwise named Coinbase Custody as the proposed custodian of the Bitwise NEAR ETF. The management fee, ticker and stock exchange it seeks to list on weren’t named yet. 

Source: Cointelegraph

Bitwise must also file a 19b-4 filing with the SEC to kickstart the regulator’s approval process for the fund. The crypto native asset manager indicated it would make such a filing when it registered a trust linked to the NEAR ETF in Delaware on April 28.

NEAR joins a pile of spot crypto ETFs on the SEC’s desk

The SEC now has at least a dozen spot crypto ETFs to review in 2025, including applications for Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Solana (SOL), XRP (XRP), Cardano (ADA), Hedera (HBAR), Polkadot (DOT), Chainlink (LINK), Avalanche (AVAX), Aptos (APT) and Sui (SUI).

Bitwise already has applications out for a spot DOGE, SOL, and XRP ETFs, and also has an approved spot Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) ETF, which are listed on the NYSE Arca and have attracted a combined $2.35 billion in net inflows since launching last year.

NEAR — the token powering the layer-1 Near blockchain — is the 44th largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $2.73 billion, CoinGecko data shows.

The Near blockchain was once touted as an Ethereum killer and is considered by its proponents as a solution to the “blockchain trilemma” — the challenge of achieving all three critical aspects of blockchain performance: security, scalability and decentralization.

Related: Ethereum’s era of crypto dominance is over — LONGITUDE panel

Through Nightshade sharding, Near can process up to 100,000 transactions per second and is secured by 265 active validators, Nearblocks.io data shows.

Source: Justin Bons

The Near ecosystem shifted from decentralized finance to AI infrastructure in 2024, unveiling plans to build the world’s largest open-source large language model.

Magazine: 12 minutes of nail-biting tension when Ethereum’s Pectra fork goes live

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is seeking permission from the court to drop an appeal against prediction market Kalshi. The move could allow the platform to offer political event contracts to users without contest.

In a May 5 filing in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, lawyers for the CFTC filed an unopposed motion for voluntary dismissal, suggesting an agreement with Kalshi. The motion, subject to approval by the court, could end the CFTC’s appeal against a federal court ruling that the financial regulator could not bar Kalshi from listing political event contracts, i.e., bets on elections.

Motion to dismiss appeal filed by the CFTC on May 5. Source: Courtlistener

Kalshi stipulated in a joint filing that the company would “bear its own costs, court fees and attorney fees incurred” if the court granted the CFTC’s motion to dismiss. The platform said that “election markets are here to stay” in a May 6 X post following the filing.

The betting platform initially filed a lawsuit against the CFTC in 2023 in response to the regulator ordering Kalshi to stop offering political event contracts. The company won in the lower court, prompting the appeal by the CFTC in September 2024.

Motion to drop the appeal after the change in administration?

The case was handled mainly before the US election and the appointment of acting CFTC chair Caroline Pham under President Donald Trump. CFTC Commissioner Summer Mersinger, nominated by former President Joe Biden, reportedly echoed Kalshi’s sentiment in February, claiming that election prediction markets were “here to stay.”

Related: Kalshi accepts Bitcoin deposits in bid to woo crypto-native users

Launched in 2021, Kalshi became popular among many crypto users in part due to bets related to the 2024 US election. Though the CFTC argued in its appeal that betting on the elections could result in “spectacular manipulation” of markets and harm to the public interest, the regulator under Pham and Trump appeared to have reversed its position with the motion to dismiss. 

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A group of crypto traders reportedly purchased millions of dollars worth of Melania Trump’s memecoins minutes before she announced the launch on social media.

According to a May 6 Financial Times report, the crypto traders earned roughly $100 million from buying $2.6 million worth of MELANIA tokens before the public launch on Jan. 19. Shortly after Trump announced the memecoin launch on social media, the price surged from roughly $2.00 to $12.95 — a 550% increase. The traders reportedly sold their holdings within 12 hours.

“In total, the 24 accounts bought up 16.7mn of the 200mn total $MELANIA tokens scheduled for sale during the launch period,” the Financial Times reported. “[…] the run of sales that started pre-launch continued. About $900,000 worth of tokens bought by an additional 22 accounts in the 42 seconds after the launch.”

Price of MELANIA token from Jan. 19 to Jan. 28. Source: CoinMarketCap

The memecoin started trading roughly two days after then-president-elect Donald Trump announced the launch of his own TRUMP coin. Both tokens have come under scrutiny from lawmakers, alleging conflicts of interest and corruption due to the potential for bribery and foreign influence.

Memecoin dinner prompts call for impeachment

Much of the scrutiny and criticism from US lawmakers over the memecoins seems to be directed at the president rather than the first lady. After Trump announced some of the top TRUMP tokenholders would be offeried the chance to get access to him at a private dinner and tour, one senator called for his impeachment.

Related: Dem lawmakers object to hearing, citing ‘Trump’s crypto corruption’

Both the prices of the MELANIA and TRUMP tokens have dropped significantly since shortly after their launch in January, with the First Lady’s memecoin falling to $0.31 at the time of publication. The TRUMP token price briefly surged after the memecoin dinner announcement in April, but had dropped to $10.90 as of May 6.

Two companies connected to the president control roughly 80% of the TRUMP supply, though many of the tokens were locked and will be released over the next three years. Critics have suggested that the project’s insiders could still rug-pull investors.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions