Overview
- Morgan Stanley’s proposed spot bitcoin fund, the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), received an NYSE listing notice on Wednesday, which analysts say usually points to an imminent start.
- An amended SEC filing set the fee at 0.14%, undercutting current low-cost rivals and raising the odds that advisors move client money to cut costs since these funds offer near-identical bitcoin exposure.
- Trading still requires final SEC clearance, even after Morgan Stanley filed updated S-1 details and a Form 8-A that outlined a 10,000-share basket and about $1 million in seed capital.
- BNY Mellon will handle administration, transfer agent work, and cash custody, while reports differ on the primary bitcoin custodian, with some citing Coinbase Custody and others naming Fidelity.
- If approved, MSBT would be the first spot bitcoin ETF issued by a major U.S. bank, giving Morgan Stanley’s 16,000-advisor wealth platform a house product to match its 0%–4% bitcoin allocation guidance and potentially channel sizable inflows into a market built since 2024 around low fees, cold storage custody, and ETF wrappers.