Crypto05 May, 20262 min read
Morgan Stanley Launches Spot Crypto Trading on E*Trade With 50 Basis Points Fees
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Morgan Stanley launches crypto trading on E*Trade at 50 basis points per transaction. Fees at 50 bps are cheaper than Coinbase, Robinhood, and Charles Schwab.
Morgan Stanley enters retail crypto
Morgan Stanley is launching a pilot of spot cryptocurrency trading on its E*Trade platform, charging 50 basis points (0,50 %) per transaction as it prepares to expand access to E*Trade’s 8.6 million clients by the end of the year. The service is positioned against competitors’ pricing, with the Reuters-linked coverage in the source noting that Charles Schwab charges 75 points de base and that Morgan Stanley’s 50 points de base are “moins que les 75 points de Charles Schwab.”
Bloomberg’s ETF analyst Eric Balchunas is quoted estimating that Schwab “ne laissera probablement pas cela en l'état,” anticipating a pricing fight among traditional brokers. Jed Finn, responsible de la gestion de patrimoine chez Morgan Stanley, frames the move as more than cheaper trading, saying the strategy aims to “désintermédier les désintermédiaires.”
Price war and product roadmap
The pilot’s pricing is described as aggressive, with the source stating Morgan Stanley charges 50 basis points per transaction on E*Trade while Robinhood’s entry-level rate is 95 basis points and Coinbase starts at 60 basis points. In the same coverage, Charles Schwab’s rate is described as 75 basis points, and the pilot is said to be “quietly been rolled out” with access expected later this year for E*Trade’s 8.6 million customers.
Jed Finn tells Bloomberg that “This is much bigger than trading cryptocurrencies at a cheaper rate,” linking the launch to a broader effort to “de-intermediate the intermediaries.” Beyond spot trading, the source says Morgan Stanley is preparing direct conversion from crypto into ETF shares without selling first, and plans tokenized stock trading for its institutional clients in the second half of 2026.
Competition, custody, and stakes
The sources place Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade launch inside a wider push that includes a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, with the TradingView-linked material saying MSBT has generated 103 millions de dollars d'entrées nettes en six jours and now exceeds 205 millions d'actifs sous gestion. On the institutional side, the coverage says Morgan Stanley is preparing a national fiduciary bank authorization to custody digital assets, and it also describes a stablecoin reserves fund that maintains a net stable value of 1 $ via cash and Treasury bills maturing in less than 93 days.
The competitive stakes are framed through the quoted view that “It’s going to be very competitive in the next couple of years,” with Finn tying the outlook to regulatory hurdles “starting to dry up.” In parallel, the Bloomberg Línea coverage describes the bank’s roadmap as capturing an asset class “virtually off-limits to banks,” while also noting that spot trading on E*Trade is expected to reach the 8.6 million customer base later this year.