Morgan Stanley's E*TRADE Commences Crypto Trading Pilot

Morgan Stanley is intertwining digital asset with TradFi, rolling out spot crypto trading on E*TRADE with a discount pricing strategy undercuting that of a close legacy brokerage competitor.

What's the Scoop?

• Crypto Pilot: E*TRADE – the online brokerage platform owned by banking giant Morgan Stanley – has begun a spot crypto trading pilot program, opening the door for its 8.6M retail clients to directly buy and sell digital assets. The addition of spot crypto trading will complement Morgan Stanley's recently launched spot BTC ETF (MSBT), which has accumulated $211M of inflows since launching last month on April 8.
• Fee Structure: Although E*TRADE is instituting a 50 basis point (0.5%) fee on crypto transactions, making initial acquisition costs more expensive than purchasing BlackRock's IBIT through the commission-free trading the platform, unlike IBIT, there are no annual fees on spot crypto, making the offering attractive for long-term oriented holders. The offering undercuts the fee structure of close brokerage competitor Charles Schwab, which recently introduced spot crypto trading with 75 basis point (0.75%) transaction fees. Still, there remain numerous more cost-effective ways for savvy traders to purchase crypto, including Coinbase Advanced and Interactive Brokers.