Morgan Stanley launches E*Trade crypto pilot at 50-bp fee

Morgan Stanley has begun a pilot allowing a small group of clients to trade cryptocurrencies on its E*Trade platform. The firm charges a 50-basis-point fee, equal to 0.5%, and plans to open the service to about 8.6 million E*Trade accounts later this year.

The pilot lets selected retail customers buy and sell cryptocurrencies within E*Trade. Morgan Stanley set the trading charge at 50 basis points to offer lower execution costs than some retail crypto platforms, which can charge roughly 60 basis points at Coinbase and about 95 basis points at Robinhood.

The bank entered the crypto ETF market in April with the MSBT Bitcoin ETF and is extending its product line to include direct crypto trading on its retail platform.

Morgan Stanley manages more than $1 trillion in assets. The E*Trade pilot runs through the firm’s retail brokerage business and represents an initial phase before a broader rollout to the full E*Trade customer base.

Planned additions to the platform include tokenized stock trading and tools that would let clients convert crypto holdings into equivalent exchange-traded funds inside their accounts. Morgan Stanley has applied for a national bank charter to offer custody services that would allow it to hold clients’ digital assets under a bank regulatory framework.

Jed Finn, head of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management, described the effort as part of bringing traditional wealth management and crypto products closer together and called it a way of “disintermediating the disintermediators.”

The pilot combines retail trading access with the bank’s ETF business and potential custody services, enabling clients to move between direct crypto positions and regulated ETF exposure as the platform expands.