Wall Street investment banking giant Morgan Stanley is accelerating its cryptocurrency business expansion. It plans to open spot trading for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana (SOL) on its electronic trading platform E-Trade in the first half of this year, and has now announced the launch of its own digital wallet in the second half of the year.
Morgan Stanley Wealth Management head Jedd Finn told Barron’s, “This actually indicates that the way financial services infrastructure operates is about to change.”
Over time, as the infrastructure develops, we will be better able to integrate traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystems.
Notably, in the same week the news broke, Morgan Stanley also filed an S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to apply for the issuance of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana spot ETFs.
Looking back to January 2024, when the U.S. officially approved Bitcoin spot ETFs for trading, Morgan Stanley described it as a “paradigm shift in global recognition and usage of digital assets.”
Data also confirms this judgment. Since their launch, the cumulative trading volume of Bitcoin spot ETFs has exceeded $1.6 trillion; currently, the total assets under management (AUM) of 11 Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. amount to approximately $130 billion, with BlackRock’s IBIT becoming the fastest-growing ETF in history.
Later in the second half of 2024, Morgan Stanley opened its wealth management advisors to recommend Bitcoin spot ETFs to some high-net-worth clients; a year later, the bank further expanded access to crypto assets, opening related investments to all client accounts, including retirement accounts.
Morgan Stanley’s aggressive expansion reflects a collective anxiety on Wall Street. It is rumored that JPMorgan Chase is also evaluating whether to offer cryptocurrency spot and derivatives trading services to institutional clients, fearing being marginalized in this digital revolution.
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan summarized the current market situation:
Disclaimer: The information on this page may come from third parties and does not represent the views or opinions of Gate. The content displayed on this page is for reference only and does not constitute any financial, investment, or legal advice. Gate does not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the information and shall not be liable for any losses arising from the use of this information. Virtual asset investments carry high risks and are subject to significant price volatility. You may lose all of your invested principal. Please fully understand the relevant risks and make prudent decisions based on your own financial situation and risk tolerance. For details, please refer to
Disclaimer.
Related Articles
Ethereum Activity at All-Time Highs Due to Mass Capitulation - U.Today
Ethereum's network shows high activity, surpassing 2021 metrics, but this surge is due to investors selling rather than genuine demand. Liquidity is declining as users withdraw capital to exchanges, signaling potential challenges ahead.
UToday30m ago
Mega Bank's Director Rui-bin Zhuang tests stablecoin remittances, but the costs of blockchain are misunderstood.
Mega Financial Holding Co. held a media briefing on the 10th. Chairman Dong Rui-bin revealed that to objectively compare the efficiency of bank and blockchain remittances, Mega Bank mobilized 17 countries worldwide and 25 overseas branches last year for testing. Branch staff opened accounts at local legal exchanges and used the virtual asset trading platform BitoPro to trade USDT stablecoins, transferring 50 USDT each time back to Taiwan, and compared this with traditional bank cross-border wire transfers.
The results showed that stablecoins do have advantages for small-scale cross-border remittances. However, for remittance amounts exceeding the equivalent of NT$200,000 (about $7,000 USD), banks remain more cost-competitive.
Mega Experiment: Banks Are More Cost-Effective for Transfers Over $7,000 USD
The test results indicated that in the scenario of "paying NT$ in Taiwan and receiving local currency at the destination," bank wire transfers generally arrive within about 2 hours, with a fee of approximately
ChainNewsAbmedia2h ago
ETH drops 1.07% in 15 minutes: whale fund concentration triggers short-term pullback
March 10, 2026, 18:00 to 18:15 (UTC), ETH's return within the 15-minute candlestick was -1.07%, with price fluctuations ranging from 2049.1 to 2073.15 USDT, an amplitude of 1.16%. During the same period, market trading volume significantly increased by over 32%, large on-chain fund flows occurred frequently, triggering short-term market sentiment fluctuations, rapidly increasing attention, and intensifying volatility risks.
The main driver of this abnormal movement is the concentrated sell-off by whale funds. On-chain data shows that within this time window, there were four large transfers exceeding 5000 ETH, all flowing to a major...
GateNews3h ago
Tom Lee’s BitMine Acquires 60,976 ETH, Holdings Now $10.3B
Bitmine Immersion Technologies reports total assets of $10.3 billion, including 4.53M ETH. With 3.04M ETH staked, it generates $174M annually at a 2.91% yield. The firm seeks to reach 5% of total ETH supply and is expanding its staking infrastructure.
CryptoFrontNews5h ago
