Morgan Stanley has cleared a major regulatory hurdle as NYSE Arca accepted its filing for a spot Bitcoin ETF, signaling an imminent launch. The fund, expected to trade under the ticker MSBT, will be the first branded Bitcoin ETF offered directly by a major U.S. financial institution.
The trust will hold physical Bitcoin, track a benchmark price without leverage, and be custodied by Fidelity, with BNY Mellon handling administration. An amended S-1 filing outlined an initial seed investment of $1 million and 10,000 shares.
Fee competition remains intense. While not yet disclosed, analysts project MSBT’s expense ratio at 0.24%, marginally undercutting BlackRock’s IBIT at 0.25%.
With over 15,000 advisors recommending Bitcoin allocations up to 4% for clients, even a 2% adoption rate could channel $160 billion into the fund-nearly tripling IBIT’s current assets.
The SEC’s September 2025 approval of commodity trust listing standards streamlined the path for such products. Final SEC review is expected between late Q2 and early Q3 2026.
Beyond Bitcoin, Morgan Stanley is advancing spot ETFs for Ethereum and Solana, and plans to enable retail crypto trading via E*Trade. Tokenized equities on its alternative trading system are slated for late 2026.