Morgan Stanley is transitioning from a distributor of third-party crypto products to a direct issuer and platform provider. And, it is going to become the first U.S. bank to issue an ETF directly. In March 2026, the firm filed an amended S-1 for its own spot Bitcoin ETF. That filing landed one month after the bank applied to the OCC for a federally chartered crypto trust subsidiary. Beyond Bitcoin, they are also focusing on yield and filed for Ethereum and Solana ETFs in January 2026. [FILING]

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What happened

Morgan Stanley’s second S-1 amendment confirmed that the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust will list on NYSE Arca under the ticker MSBT. The fund will use a basket size of 10,000 shares, with an initial seed of 50,000 shares expected to raise approximately $1M.

Morgan Stanley purchased two shares on March 9 for auditing purposes.

  • BNY Mellon will serve as cash custodian, administrator, and transfer agent.

  • Coinbase will handle bitcoin custody and act as prime broker.

The fund uses the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark for daily pricing at 4 PM New York time. If approved, MSBT would be the first spot bitcoin ETF directly issued by a major U.S. bank.