BlockBeats message, April 8: Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF (MSBT) will be officially listed on the NYSE Arca market tonight, becoming the first large commercial bank in the United States to roll out a Bitcoin ETF. The New York Stock Exchange issued a listing notice on Tuesday, confirming that MSBT will be listed on April 8.
Morgan Stanley’s spot Bitcoin ETF has a management fee rate of 0.14%, which is lower than Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust’s 0.15% fee rate, at the current market’s lowest level. It is also 11 basis points lower than the 0.25% fee rates of the spot ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity. The ETF’s initial size is 10k shares, with seed investment funding of $1 million. Custodians include Coinbase and Bank of New York Mellon. Analysts believe this pricing is smart and competitive, and is expected to attract asset migration; prior similar fee differentials have already led to a significant outflow of assets from Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust to competing products.
MSBT’s launch is one of Morgan Stanley’s major moves into the crypto market this year. In February, the firm applied for a national trust bank charter so it can provide clients with crypto asset custody, buy-sell swaps, and staking services. In addition, in January of the same year, it also applied to list an Ethereum staking ETF and a Solana ETF. Bitwise advisor Jeff Park said that Morgan Stanley’s launch of a Bitcoin ETF is beneficial for Bitcoin, and that there is still a large amount of demand in the market that has not been met. The market size is far beyond what crypto professionals had expected, especially in terms of attracting new customers. Although IBIT has become the fastest ETF in history to reach $80 billion in AUM, Morgan Stanley still believes there is a large amount of real demand in the market that remains unmet. This sends a strong signal: we are still in the very, very early stages.