Morgan Stanley filed applications with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on January 6, 2026 to launch two spot exchange‑traded funds that track Bitcoin and Solana. The filings mark the bank’s first direct entry into the crypto‑ETF market, a move that could broaden its fee‑based asset‑management business and tap a growing client demand for regulated digital‑asset exposure.
The proposed Bitcoin ETF will be a spot product that holds the underlying cryptocurrency in a custodial account, and the Solana ETF will also be a spot fund but will incorporate a staking component that allows investors to earn rewards from the Solana network. Both funds are expected to list on the New York Stock Exchange, with expense ratios of 0.20% for the Bitcoin fund and 0.25% for the Solana fund. Morgan Stanley has named Fidelity Digital Assets as the custodian for the Bitcoin fund and SolanaPay as the custodian for the Solana fund.
Morgan Stanley’s move comes after the bank reported record net revenues of $61.8 billion and net income of $13.4 billion for 2024, and after it announced a strategy to allow advisors to recommend crypto ETFs to clients with suitability guardrails. The firm serves roughly 19 million wealth‑management clients, and the new ETFs give it a direct channel to capture management fees that previously flowed to third‑party issuers.
The entry places Morgan Stanley alongside BlackRock and Fidelity, both of which already offer spot Bitcoin ETFs. By issuing its own branded products, the bank can retain fee income and potentially prompt other large asset managers to launch in‑house crypto ETFs. The choice of Solana over Ethereum is driven by Solana’s high‑throughput, low‑cost architecture and the opportunity to generate staking yields, a feature that could attract yield‑seeking investors.
The filings arrive amid a regulatory environment that has become more favorable for crypto ETFs. The SEC approved the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs in January 2024 and issued guidance in July 2025 that streamlined the approval process for new crypto products. Analysts have welcomed the move, noting that it signals confidence in the maturity of the crypto‑ETF market and could accelerate broader institutional adoption.
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