Morgan Stanley Enters Bitcoin ETF Race With The Lowest Fee On Market
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Morgan Stanley became the first major U.S. bank to launch its own spot Bitcoin(BTC) exchange-traded fund on Apr. 8.
Since today Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust is listed on NYSE Arca under the ticker MSBT with an expense ratio of 14 basis points — the lowest among all spot BTC ETFs on the market.
MSBT Fee Structure
The fund enters a field of more than 10 spot BTC ETFs that collectively hold over $85 billion in assets.
MSBT undercuts Grayscale Investments' BTC fund by one basis point and BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) by 11 basis points. IBIT currently controls roughly 60% of all category assets.
"We really wanted to show our commitment by having that lower fee," Allyson Wallace, Global Head of ETFs at Morgan Stanley Investment Management said. "The demand, especially from the high-net-worth investors, has been quite high."
Since 2024, those advisers have been allowed to recommend third-party BTC ETFs such as IBIT and Fidelity's FBTC. MSBT now keeps the management fee in-house.
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Balchunas $5B Forecast
ETF analyst Eric Balchunaspredicted $5 billion in assets under management within the first year and $30 million in day-one trading volume.
He noted that the aggressive fee positioning signals strong demand from financial advisers.
"Big boys can afford to be late," Balchunas wrote, "although they're smart enough to bring some differentiation in the low fee."
The launch comes during a pronounced downturn. BTC has fallen more than 40% from its October peak near $126,199 and traded at $71,307 on launch day.
Spot BTC ETFs saw four consecutive months of net outflows between November 2025 and February 2026, totaling roughly $6.3 billion. March reversed the trend with $1.32 billion in inflows, though Q1 2026 still ended with a modest net outflow.
Morgan Stanley Crypto Ambitions
The bank's ETF plans extend beyond Bitcoin.
Morgan Stanley filed S-1 registrations in January for both an Ethereum(ETH) trust and a Solana(SOL) trust, and plans to roll out retail crypto trading on E-Trade in the first half of 2026.
Coinbase Custody Trust Co. and Bank of New York Mellon will provide digital-asset custody for MSBT. The fund launched with roughly $1 million in seed capital and 50,000 shares available for trading.
Morgan Stanley's path to this point has been gradual. In December 2017, the bank's analyst James Faucette published a research note arguing Bitcoin's true value could be zero, and CEO James Gorman called the asset "by definition speculative."
By October 2021, Gorman shifted his tone, telling analysts that crypto was "not a fad" and was "not going away." In March 2021, the bank became the first major Wall Street institution to offer wealthy clients access to Bitcoin funds.
