Morgan Stanley Launches Crypto Trading Pilot on E*Trade at 50 Basis Points

According to Bloomberg, Morgan Stanley launched a spot cryptocurrency trading pilot on ETrade on Wednesday, May 6, charging clients 50 basis points per transaction. The sixth-largest U.S. bank by assets will expand access to all 8.6 million ETrade clients later this year.

The 50-basis-point fee undercuts Charles Schwab's 75-basis-point offering. Jed Finn, head of wealth management at Morgan Stanley, described the initiative as part of a broader strategy to "disintermediate the disintermediators." The pilot follows the bank's April launch of MSBT, a low-cost spot bitcoin ETF that accumulated over $205 million in assets within weeks.