Morgan Stanley on its first day of trading launched MSBT, a spot Bitcoin ETF priced at 0.14% a year, undercutting BlackRock’s IBIT and making it the cheapest fund of its kind on the market. The ETF drew $34 million in its debut and bought 430 BTC, a start that gave the bank an immediate foothold in a market it had long watched from the sidelines.
ETF analyst Eric Balchunas said the debut put MSBT in the top 1% of all ETF launches over the past year, a sharp result for a bank that only recently began leaning into crypto for clients. Morgan Stanley’s roughly 16,000 financial advisors have been recommending Bitcoin ETFs since 2024, but until now that money flowed to competitors such as BlackRock, Fidelity and ARK.
The launch also marks a reversal for a bank that once took a far colder view of the asset. In 2017, Morgan Stanley published a research note arguing that Bitcoin’s true value could be zero. Eight years later, the firm is not just in the market but leading it on price, using a lower fee to chase investors who have shown they still care about cost even in a fast-growing corner of finance.
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That shift comes as the broader Bitcoin ETF market is finding its footing again. In March, Bitcoin ETFs posted their first positive monthly inflows of 2026, pulling in $1.32 billion after four straight months of outflows, suggesting that investor demand has not gone away even after a rough stretch.
Morgan Stanley is not stopping with Bitcoin. The bank filed for Ethereum and Solana trusts in January 2026 and plans to launch retail crypto trading on E*Trade in the first half of 2026, signaling a wider push into digital assets under its own name. MSBT is the first major U.S. bank-issued spot Bitcoin ETF, and its opening day shows the bank now wants a direct stake in a business it once treated with skepticism.
