Morgan Stanley is set to launch trading in its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF), MSBT, on the NYSE Arca exchange on April 8 at 9 a.m. EDT, confirmed in a listing notice on Tuesday. The fund is set to hold BTC directly and charge an annual fee of 0.14%, undercutting the 0.25% fee of BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, which leads in the current ETF market.
This latest filing stands to be the first spot BTC ETF product to enter the market in nearly two years, since the first launch by asset manager Grayscale in July 2024.
Moreover, MSBT is launching into a competitive market dominated by BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC, which have brought in a combined $74.3 billion in net inflows since their launches, according to data from Farside Investors.
MSBT will track the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark 4 pm NY Settlement Rate and use BNY Mellon and Coinbase Custody Trust Company as custodians. The initial seed for the listing is estimated at $1 million through the issuance of 50,000 shares.
MSBT Opens The Asset Manager’s Aggressive Push Into Crypto
The launch of the BTC ETF will add to Morgan Stanley’s aggressive push into the crypto market this year. The bank also applied for a national trust banking charter in February. This was supposed to enable the asset manager to custody crypto, execute sales and swaps for clients, and offer staking services.
Additionally, the bank also filed to list a staked Ether ETF and a Solana ETF in the first week of January. In the same month, it appointed one of the company’s longest-standing executives, Amy Oldenburg, to lead its digital asset team.
Morgan Stanley is also stepping in with competitive fees of 0.14%, a move that could prompt rivals to cut costs. While it remains to be seen how the product performs against the current leaders, analysts like Eric Balchunas agree that the entry marks a significant moment for the crypto space.
With the bank recently confirming plans to let its clients trade tokenized versions of US stocks and ETFs on its internal ATS, it looks like it’s going all in on digital assets.
