After priming its financial advisors to sell nontraditional, crypto assets, Morgan Stanley on Wednesday opened for trading the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, with the ticker MSBT, an exchange-traded product, or ETP, that seeks to track the performance of bitcoin.
MSBT opened for trading on Wednesday at $20.74 per share; on Friday close to 1:00 p.m. ET it was trading at $20.93 per share.
Morgan Stanley’s listing of MSBT is the latest in a flurry of recent moves by various financial advice firms to broaden retail clients' ability to buy and invest in nontraditional and highly volatile assets like cryptocurrencies.
Franklin Templeton, an investment management giant for financial advisors and their clients, said at the start of the month it agreed to acquire cryptocurrency investment management firm 250 Digital and also launch a new division, Franklin Crypto.
Bitcoin and others hit record highs in the fall but have slumped sharply since.
The addition of MSBT expands Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s exchange-traded capabilities and reinforces the ongoing efforts to provide broader access to a wide range of investment offerings across traditional and emerging asset classes, according to the company.
MSBT seeks to track the performance of bitcoin, as measured by the performance of the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate, which is calculated based on an aggregation of executed trade flow of major bitcoin spot exchanges.
MSBT’s unitary delegated sponsor fee is 0.14%, which is currently the lowest bitcoin ETP sponsor fee as of its release.
According to the company, the MSBT launch builds on Morgan Stanley’s recent investments across the digital asset ecosystem, including the appointment of dedicated leadership to guide firmwide digital asset strategies and ongoing efforts to expand institutional-grade capabilities across custody, trading and product development.
“Digital assets are increasingly intersecting with traditional markets, and our focus is on helping clients access that evolution through structures they understand and trust,” said Amy Oldenburg, Head of Digital Asset Strategy, in a statement.
“MSBT reflects our firmwide approach to thoughtfully building digital asset capabilities grounded in traditional governance and market infrastructure that seeks to meet long-term client needs,” she said. “We believe that our ability to simplify how investors access their complete portfolio across asset classes and investment types will resonate with our clients and investors across the globe.”
Launched in early 2023, Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s group of ETFs recently surpassed $12 billion in assets under management and comprises 19 products including five Calvert-branded ETFs, three Parametric-branded ETFs and 11 Eaton Vance-branded fixed income ETFs.
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