Morgan Stanley is preparing to launch the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, marking the first spot bitcoin exchange-traded fund to be offered by a major U.S. bank. The fund is expected to begin trading as early as Wednesday on NYSE Arca under the ticker MSBT. The move represents a significant step in the bank’s expanding push into digital assets.
Unlike futures-based products, the fund will hold actual bitcoin directly, giving investors exposure to the cryptocurrency’s spot price. Custody services will be provided by BNY and Coinbase Custody, two established names in institutional asset storage. This dual-custody arrangement is intended to provide security and operational reliability for the fund’s holdings.
Morgan Stanley has set an annual fee of 0.14 percent, a rate that positions it below BlackRock‘s iShares Bitcoin Trust and the majority of competing products currently on the market. The competitive pricing could attract cost-conscious institutional and retail investors who are already considering bitcoin ETF options. Fee structures have become a key battleground among issuers as the spot bitcoin ETF market grows more crowded.
The launch extends Morgan Stanley’s broader strategy of deepening its presence in the digital-asset space. By entering the spot ETF market, the bank joins a growing list of financial institutions seeking to offer regulated bitcoin investment vehicles. The move signals continued mainstream acceptance of bitcoin as an investable asset class within traditional finance.
Spot bitcoin ETFs as a category have already demonstrated strong investor demand, drawing more than $56 billion in net inflows since their introduction. That level of capital accumulation has contributed to changes in how bitcoin’s market volatility behaves over time. Analysts expect Morgan Stanley’s entry to further reinforce the institutionalization of bitcoin by lending additional credibility to the asset class.
Originally reported by CoinDesk.
