Overview
- Morgan Stanley, which began a pilot on Wednesday, is offering bitcoin, ether and solana trading on E*Trade at a 0.50% transaction fee.
- The fee undercuts major rivals, with Coinbase around 0.60%, Charles Schwab at 0.75% and Robinhood near 0.95% depending on order size.
- The bank plans to expand access to all 8.6 million E*Trade customers later this year, with trade execution supported by infrastructure provider Zerohash.
- Wealth chief Jed Finn said the aim is to reduce reliance on crypto-native brokers, calling the strategy an effort to “disintermediate the disintermediators.”
- The pilot follows April’s launch of a Bitcoin ETF and a custody charter application, with Ether and Solana funds, crypto-to-ETF conversion and tokenized equity trading described as next steps.