Stanley
will begin offering cryptocurrency trading to E*Trade customers
next year through a partnership with digital asset
infrastructure provider Zerohash, marking another major Wall
Street bank’s entry into retail crypto services.
The rollout
will start in the first half of 2026 with three major
cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. E*Trade clients will be able to
trade these digital tokens directly through the platform, according
to a Morgan Stanley spokesperson.
Morgan
Stanley’s move puts it in direct competition with rivals
who have already captured significant revenue from cryptocurrency
trading. Robinhood, which has offered crypto trading for over
five years, generated
$626 million from digital asset transactions last year, representing
21% of its total net revenue.
Charles
Schwab has taken
a different approach, providing clients access to BTC and ETH through
exchange -traded funds rather than direct token trading. Interactive
Brokers has also
expanded its crypto offerings and led Zerohash’s
recent $104 million funding round.
Edward Woodford, Zerohash’s CEO
“Every
bank that has a trading or private wealth arm will offer crypto to
their customers as a spot contract,” said Edward Woodford,
Zerohash’s CEO. “In the last year they’ve had the clarity in
order to enter the space.”
Regulatory Shift
Opens Doors for Banks
The
expansion comes after a regulatory
shift under the Trump administration, which has taken a more
supportive stance toward cryptocurrency regulation. This change has
emboldened traditional financial institutions to develop digital asset
products for their customers.
Jed Finn,
Morgan Stanley’s head of wealth management, said the crypto
trading launch represents just the first phase of the bank’s digital
asset strategy. The firm plans to develop a full
cryptocurrency wallet solution for clients and will introduce an
asset-allocation strategy for crypto investments within the
coming weeks.
Jed Finn, Morgan Stanley’s head of wealth management
“The
underlying technology has been proven and blockchain -based infrastructure
is obviously here to stay,” Finn said. “Clients should have
access to digitized assets, traditional assets and cryptocurrencies, all
in the same ecosystem that they’re used to.”
We first
heard in
early May that the giant lender planned to introduce cryptocurrency trading
for its retail clients on the E*Trade platform. The move was reportedly driven
by regulatory easing in the United States.
Market Reaches New Heights
The cryptocurrency
market has evolved from a niche speculative investment into a $3.9 trillion
asset class that has attracted institutional investors,
asset managers and retail traders. Bitcoin alone accounts for
approximately $2.25 trillion of that total market value, while Ethereum
represents around $506 billion.
Morgan
Stanley’s planned asset-allocation strategies will recommend
crypto positions ranging from
zero to several percentage points of a client’s portfolio, depending
on individual investment goals and risk tolerance.
The bank is
also exploring broader applications for blockchain technology beyond
trading, including potential improvements to back-office operations
like settlement and clearing processes.
“If
you fast-forward it to its logical extreme, the way we interact with
money becomes significantly different,” Finn said. For wealth
management firms, “sitting between the client and this emerging
tradfi-defi divide, and simplifying the user
experience” represents a “massive opportunity.”
Zerohash’s
funding round, which included participation from Morgan
Stanley, Interactive Brokers, SoFi and other financial firms,
valued the infrastructure company at $1 billion and granted it unicorn status
in the fintech sector.
Check more Morgan Stanley related stories:
Stanley
will begin offering cryptocurrency trading to E*Trade customers
next year through a partnership with digital asset
infrastructure provider Zerohash, marking another major Wall
Street bank’s entry into retail crypto services.
The rollout
will start in the first half of 2026 with three major
cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana. E*Trade clients will be able to
trade these digital tokens directly through the platform, according
to a Morgan Stanley spokesperson.
Morgan
Stanley’s move puts it in direct competition with rivals
who have already captured significant revenue from cryptocurrency
trading. Robinhood, which has offered crypto trading for over
five years, generated
$626 million from digital asset transactions last year, representing
21% of its total net revenue.
Charles
Schwab has taken
a different approach, providing clients access to BTC and ETH through
exchange -traded funds rather than direct token trading. Interactive
Brokers has also
expanded its crypto offerings and led Zerohash’s
recent $104 million funding round.
Edward Woodford, Zerohash’s CEO
“Every
bank that has a trading or private wealth arm will offer crypto to
their customers as a spot contract,” said Edward Woodford,
Zerohash’s CEO. “In the last year they’ve had the clarity in
order to enter the space.”
Regulatory Shift
Opens Doors for Banks
The
expansion comes after a regulatory
shift under the Trump administration, which has taken a more
supportive stance toward cryptocurrency regulation. This change has
emboldened traditional financial institutions to develop digital asset
products for their customers.
Jed Finn,
Morgan Stanley’s head of wealth management, said the crypto
trading launch represents just the first phase of the bank’s digital
asset strategy. The firm plans to develop a full
cryptocurrency wallet solution for clients and will introduce an
asset-allocation strategy for crypto investments within the
coming weeks.
Jed Finn, Morgan Stanley’s head of wealth management
“The
underlying technology has been proven and blockchain -based infrastructure
is obviously here to stay,” Finn said. “Clients should have
access to digitized assets, traditional assets and cryptocurrencies, all
in the same ecosystem that they’re used to.”
We first
heard in
early May that the giant lender planned to introduce cryptocurrency trading
for its retail clients on the E*Trade platform. The move was reportedly driven
by regulatory easing in the United States.
Market Reaches New Heights
The cryptocurrency
market has evolved from a niche speculative investment into a $3.9 trillion
asset class that has attracted institutional investors,
asset managers and retail traders. Bitcoin alone accounts for
approximately $2.25 trillion of that total market value, while Ethereum
represents around $506 billion.
Morgan
Stanley’s planned asset-allocation strategies will recommend
crypto positions ranging from
zero to several percentage points of a client’s portfolio, depending
on individual investment goals and risk tolerance.
The bank is
also exploring broader applications for blockchain technology beyond
trading, including potential improvements to back-office operations
like settlement and clearing processes.
“If
you fast-forward it to its logical extreme, the way we interact with
money becomes significantly different,” Finn said. For wealth
management firms, “sitting between the client and this emerging
tradfi-defi divide, and simplifying the user
experience” represents a “massive opportunity.”
Zerohash’s
funding round, which included participation from Morgan
Stanley, Interactive Brokers, SoFi and other financial firms,
valued the infrastructure company at $1 billion and granted it unicorn status
in the fintech sector.
Check more Morgan Stanley related stories:
