Morgan Stanley is expanding its crypto push with spot Ethereum and Solana ETFs featuring industry-low 0.14% fees and built-in staking. The bank is also growing its Bitcoin ETF and direct crypto trading offerings through E*Trade.
Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley is expanding deeper into crypto, and this time it’s targeting the altcoin ETF market.
On June 18, the bank filed amended registration statements for spot Ethereum and Solana exchange-traded funds. Both products carry a sponsor fee of just 0.14%, which would make them the cheapest ETFs in their respective categories if approved.
The move follows the same strategy Morgan Stanley used when it entered the Bitcoin ETF market earlier this year. It offers the lowest fees and uses its massive wealth management network to attract investors.
Morgan Stanley first entered the crypto ETF race in April with the launch of the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), a spot Bitcoin ETF backed by physical BTC.
The fund immediately stood out because of its pricing. MSBT charges just 0.14% annually, making it cheaper than major competitors, including BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust at 0.25%, Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust at 0.15%, and Bitwise’s 0.20% offering.
The strategy has worked so far.
MSBT attracted more than $100 million during its first week and has now gathered over $300 million in cumulative inflows. It also managed to avoid outflows during its first month, something no other spot Bitcoin ETF has achieved.
Morgan Stanley’s huge distribution network, which includes around 16,000 financial advisors managing roughly $9.3 trillion in assets, gives the bank an edge that few crypto-native firms can match.
The ETF business is only part of Morgan Stanley’s crypto expansion.
In May, the bank launched a crypto trading pilot on E*Trade that allows clients to directly buy and hold three cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Solana (SOL).
Trading fees are set at 0.5%, undercutting competitors such as Charles Schwab and Fidelity. Crypto infrastructure firm Zerohash handles custody, settlement, and liquidity.
The pilot currently serves a small group of users, but Morgan Stanley plans to expand the service to all 8.6 million E*Trade clients later in 2026.
Morgan Stanley’s proposed spot Ethereum ETF will trade under the ticker MSSE on NYSE Arca.
The fund would charge a 0.14% fee, narrowly beating Grayscale’s Mini Ethereum Trust, which currently holds the lowest fee in the market at 0.15%.
Morgan Stanley plans to stake between 50% and 80% of the fund’s Ethereum holdings. The staking rewards generated will largely flow back to investors, with service providers keeping only 5% of rewards while shareholders receive the remaining 95%.
The bank itself will not take any extra staking fees beyond the standard management fee.
The proposed spot Solana ETF, which will trade under the ticker MSOL, follows a similar model.
At 0.14%, it would become the cheapest Solana ETF available, undercutting Franklin Templeton’s Solana fund, which charges 0.19%.
Like the Ethereum product, the Solana ETF will also include staking, allowing investors to earn additional yield while gaining exposure to SOL’s price movements.
Figment, Galaxy Blockchain Infrastructure, and Coinbase Canada will handle staking operations for both funds.
So far, Morgan Stanley has focused only on the largest and most established cryptocurrencies:
There are currently no signs that Morgan Stanley is considering ETFs for smaller altcoins, memecoins, or speculative tokens.
Instead, the bank appears to be following a cautious strategy, only adding assets that offer deep liquidity, institutional demand, staking opportunities, and a relatively clear regulatory path.
With Morgan Stanley pushing ETF fees down to just 0.14%, the competition among crypto ETF issuers is likely to become even more intense in the months ahead.
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