Morgan Stanley expands crypto lending pathway for spot ETF conversions

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Morgan Stanley expands crypto lending

Highlights

Morgan Stanley enables clients to lend crypto assets to Galaxy Digital and receive shares in spot crypto ETPs, including the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, cutting onboarding times by up to 75%.
Galaxy Digital lowered the minimum lending transaction for Morgan Stanley-referred clients from $25 million to $5 million, expanding access to institutional spot ETP conversions.
Morgan Stanley expands its digital asset footprint with spot crypto trading pilots via E-Trade, a Stablecoin Reserves Portfolio fund, and the Bitcoin Trust, which saw no net redemptions in its first month.

Client conversion process and product scope

As announced by Morgan Stanley, the program enables clients to lend crypto assets to Galaxy Digital and receive shares in spot crypto ETPs, including the recently launched Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust. The firm said the in-kind structure can reduce crypto-to-ETP onboarding times by as much as 75%, while Galaxy is cutting the minimum lending transaction for Morgan Stanley-referred clients to $5 million from $25 million.

Alison Nest, Morgan Stanley's head of investment solutions products, said the referral arrangement provides Wealth Management clients with an institutional pathway for integrating digital assets into portfolios. She said the move helps connect traditional finance and decentralized finance and gives investors a more streamlined way to diversify.

Broader push into digital assets

The initiative comes as Morgan Stanley increases its activity in crypto and digital-asset products. The expansion is being driven in part by Amy Oldenburg, a longtime Morgan Stanley executive who was appointed earlier this year to lead the firm's first digital asset strategy role.

Beyond launching a bitcoin ETF, Morgan Stanley has started piloting spot crypto trading through an E-Trade tie-up and has also rolled out the Stablecoin Reserves Portfolio money market fund. The Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, launched on April 8, completed its first month without a single day of net redemptions, according to the company.

For Galaxy, the partnership adds to a broader institutional financial-services push. The company reported $505 million in adjusted gross profit in 2025 from its trading, lending, asset management and staking services unit, and earlier this week it launched an institutional over-the-counter prediction-market trading desk.

Our earlier analysis of Coinbase (COIN) highlighted a sharp sell-off driven by bearish technical momentum and weak buying interest, even as the company signaled optimism about expanding institutional partnerships. We noted that the market’s focus remained on near-term business pressures and macro headwinds, which overshadowed positive partnership headlines and kept downside risks elevated in the short term.

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