Table of Contents
Morgan Stanley Investment Management (MSIM) launched the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (NYSE Arca: MSBT) on Wednesday, becoming the first U.S. bank-affiliated asset manager to offer a cryptocurrency ETP.
MSBT seeks to track the performance of bitcoin and carries a unitary delegated sponsor fee of 0.14%, the lowest bitcoin ETP sponsor fee at the time of launch. Coinbase and BNY have been selected to provide digital asset custody services, with BNY also serving as administrator and transfer agent, according to a statement. BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust, the dominant fund in the category with roughly $55 billion in assets, charges 0.25%.
"We are proud to introduce MSBT to the marketplace and believe this new ETP aligns with long-term trends in financial innovation and serves to strengthen the range of investments we provide investors," said Ben Huneke, head of MSIM.
Morgan Stanley's 16,000 financial advisors oversee $9.3 trillion in client assets and can now direct bitcoin allocations to an in-house product rather than a competitor's. The fund drew approximately $34 million in net inflows on its first day and processed more than 1.6 million shares. Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas projected it could reach $5 billion in AUM within its first year.
Trading day is half over and $MSBT is at $27m in volume so it's def going to clear my $30m estimate. Prob end up around $50m, which is huge, Top 1% of ETF launches, only two I can recall that were in this range in past year are $BSOL, $XRPC and $DRAM (all around $60m) pic.twitter.com/RylAwtAVz9
— Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) April 8, 2026
MSBT is part of a broader digital asset buildout at the bank. MSIM has also filed registration statements for an Ethereum trust and a Solana trust, both pending regulatory approval.
Meanwhile, Charles Schwab has confirmed it remains on track to launch spot Bitcoin and Ether trading in the first half of 2026 through a new Schwab Crypto account, offered via its banking subsidiary Charles Schwab Premier Bank, CoinDesk reported. A waitlist is already live. The service will not be available in New York or Louisiana at launch.
