Morgan Stanley enters spot Bitcoin ETF race with MSBT

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Morgan Stanley launches Bitcoin ETF

Highlights

Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust is expected to begin trading on NYSE Arca on April 8 under the ticker MSBT.
The fund will hold Bitcoin directly, and its fee will be 0.14%, below BlackRock IBIT’s base rate.
IBIT and FBTC have already gathered about $74.3 billion in net inflows, meaning Morgan Stanley is entering an extremely crowded market.

According to a listing notice published by the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust will debut on April 8 with the ticker MSBT. The final prospectus specifies that the fund will hold Bitcoin directly, track the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate.

What Morgan Stanley is launching

In structure, MSBT resembles the existing U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs: the fund does not use leverage, derivatives, or active management, and is designed to track the price of Bitcoin minus expenses. The listed custodians are BNY and Coinbase Custody Trust Company, while the initial seed for the listing is estimated at $1 million through the issuance of 50,000 shares.

The market is paying particular attention to pricing. The prospectus lists an annual Delegated Sponsor Fee of 0.14% of NAV. That is below the 0.25% fee charged by BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, which means Morgan Stanley is entering the market in direct price competition from the start. Among major spot BTC funds, only temporary promotional waivers currently come in lower, while MSBT’s base fee is already fixed in the filing.

A late entry into a crowded market

MSBT is entering a segment where the leaders are already well established. According to Farside Investors data as of April 8, since the launch of U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs, BlackRock’s IBIT has attracted about $63.3 billion in net inflows, while Fidelity’s FBTC has brought in another $11.1 billion. Together that amounts to roughly $74.3 billion, and these are the two funds Morgan Stanley will need to compete with for liquidity and for a place in investor portfolios.

At the same time, the Morgan Stanley product is significant in its own right. According to industry publications, it is the first new US spot Bitcoin ETF since the launch of the Grayscale Bitcoin Mini Trust in July 2024, and the first such fund issued under the brand of a major US bank. In other words, Wall Street is no longer merely distributing other firms’ crypto products, but is beginning to issue its own.

A new stage for banks and crypto ETFs

In 2024, Morgan Stanley became the first major Wall Street bank to allow its advisers to offer clients spot Bitcoin ETFs. Now the bank is taking the next step and bringing its own product to the exchange. That means crypto ETFs are no longer a niche reserved for specialized issuers and are becoming firmly embedded in the product lineup of traditional financial institutions.

For the market, this is also an important signal because MSBT is entering with an aggressive price rather than a premium one. If the fund attracts even moderate demand, fee pressure across the sector is likely to increase.

As previously covered, Bitcoin ETFs post strongest inflows since February.

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