US investment bank Morgan Stanley has submitted registrations with the Securities and Exchange Commission to launch crypto exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tied to Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Solana (SOL), in a move that signals growing confidence among traditionally cautious Wall Street institutions.
Morgan Stanley Prepares To Launch Spot BTC, ETH, And SOL ETFs
Morgan Stanley, the sixth-largest U.S. bank by assets under management, is pushing its digital assets ambitions further.
The proposed Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust, and the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust are designed to function as “passive investment” vehicles that hold and track the performance of the underlying tokens, according to recently submitted Form S-1s.
If approved, the three funds will list their shares on national securities exchanges, which are usually specified in later 19b-4 filings, not the initial S-1 statements.
Morgan Stanley Investment Management sponsors the Bitcoin trust and will hold BTC directly, operating as a passive vehicle without leverage or derivatives. The fund’s net asset value will be calculated daily using a designated BTC pricing benchmark based on trading activity across major spot exchanges. The Ether and Solana funds will also generate rewards from staking a portion of the funds’ holdings.
The funds could usher in new inflows to Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana from Morgan Stanley’s over 19 million clients served through its wealth management division as of April 2025, per the company’s shareholder letter.
“Can honestly say that I am very surprised by these. Didn’t see this coming,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart observed in a Tuesday post on X. “I’ve been saying for literal years that most of these firms will change their tune on crypto.”
Until recently, Morgan Stanley advisors were banned from purchasing crypto exchange-traded funds for their clients. That changed in October last year, when the Wall Street titan announced it recommended capping crypto allocations at up to 4% in its most aggressive client portfolios.
The new ETF filings signal Morgan Stanley shifting from simply giving clients access to third-party crypto products to creating its own in-house products, underscoring a deeper commitment to digital assets.
Growing Institutional Confidence In Regulated Crypto Products
Morgan Stanley’s move suggests a growing acceptance of crypto as a long-term asset class for mainstream investors.
“Institutions are charging at crypto full-speed and see it as a key business priority,” Bitwise CIO Matt Hougan said on X.
The filing also underscores the pressure legacy companies face as crypto products become more widely available. BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), for instance, has emerged as the asset manager’s most profitable ETF, with just under $100 billion in net assets less than two years after debut.
Even Vanguard, one of the most crypto-skeptical companies on Wall Street, is giving its 50 million clients access to funds holding cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ether, Ripple’s XRP, and Solana, a reversal that would have been hard to imagine just a year ago.
Source: https://zycrypto.com/banking-behemoth-morgan-stanley-files-paperwork-for-bitcoin-ether-and-solana-etfs-in-latest-crypto-push/
