Wall Street behemoth Morgan Stanley has launched its long-awaited crypto trading pilot on its E*Trade platform, aiming to challenge major established players with competitive pricing.
Morgan Stanley Debuts Crypto Trading PilotMorgan Stanley is currently offering its crypto trading pilot to a limited number of users, but expects to give access to all of E*Trade’s 8.6 million clients later this year. Jed Finn, Morgan Stanley’s head of wealth management, said in an interview that the launch is “much bigger than trading crypto at a cheaper rate,” adding that “the strategy is disintermediating the disintermediators.”
People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that executives are preparing an offering to directly convert cryptocurrencies into shares of exchange-traded products (ETPs) without selling the assets. In addition, the bank reportedly plans to add the ability to trade tokenized equities in the second half of 2026.
Morgan Stanley’s Strategic Digital Assets PushThe launch is part of Morgan Stanley’s broader push to expand in the digital assets space, an industry that until recently was off-limits to banks. Over the past few years, the Wall Street giant has been betting on the convergence of traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFi).
In 2024, Morgan Stanley, which has built one of the most significant Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) holdings in the US, allowed its managers to offer the funds as an investment option for its wealthy customers.
