Morgan Stanley launches lower-fee U.S. spot bitcoin trust MSBT on NYSE Arca

Morgan Stanley has entered the U.S. spot bitcoin fund market, a notable milestone for traditional finance as one of Wall Street’s biggest asset managers rolls out a lower-cost product in a category that opened only two years ago. Morgan Stanley Investment Management said its new Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, trading under the ticker MSBT, began trading on NYSE Arca on April 8. In its announcement, the firm said it is “the first U.S. bank-affiliated asset manager to offer a cryptocurrency ETP.” According to ETF flow data from Farside Investors cited by The Block, the fund drew about $103 million in cumulative net inflows in its first six trading days through April 16.

The launch is getting attention in part because Morgan Stanley came in cheaper than the category leader. MSBT charges a 0.14% annual sponsor fee, which Morgan Stanley described at launch as the lowest bitcoin ETP sponsor fee at the time. That is 11 basis points below BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust, or IBIT, which charges 0.25%. Combined with the roughly $103 million in early inflows, the pricing suggests competition is intensifying in the U.S. spot bitcoin fund market even as the biggest products remain far larger.

MSBT is a spot bitcoin exchange-traded product, meaning it is designed to hold bitcoin in custody rather than gain exposure through derivatives. Morgan Stanley said the trust seeks to track bitcoin’s performance as measured by the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate. The product is listed on NYSE Arca, with Coinbase Custody serving in a key custody role and BNY Mellon acting as administrator and transfer agent. Morgan Stanley also said the registration statement for the trust had been declared effective by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that oversees U.S. securities markets. The prospectus says the trust is not registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and, like other exchange-traded trusts, can trade at a premium or discount to the value of its bitcoin holdings.

The timing matters because the first U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs were approved in January 2024, opening the door for mainstream asset managers to package direct bitcoin exposure inside familiar brokerage-market products. Since then, BlackRock’s IBIT has emerged as the category leader. Morgan Stanley’s arrival does not change that on its own, but it adds weight to the idea that spot bitcoin funds are becoming a standard part of the investment landscape rather than a niche offering from crypto-native firms.

That is especially significant because Morgan Stanley Investment Management is a large, established manager with $1.9 trillion in assets under management as of Dec. 31, 2025. “Digital assets are increasingly intersecting with traditional markets, and our focus is on helping clients access that evolution through structures they understand and trust,” Amy Oldenburg, head of digital asset strategy at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said in the launch announcement.

For now, MSBT’s early inflows are meaningful for a new entrant and a sign that fee pressure is building in spot bitcoin funds, even if the product remains small relative to the biggest funds already in the market.