Morgan Stanley Investment Management has filed preliminary prospectuses with the Securities and Exchange Commission to issue spot Bitcoin and Solana exchange-traded funds. It marks the first spot cryptocurrency ETF issuance by the asset management arm of a global systemically important bank.
Last month Goldman Sachs acquired Innovator Asset Management, which offers a defined outcome ETF with exposure to Bitcoin price movements. Other G-SIB asset managers have been involved in tokenized money market funds such as UBS uMint and JP Morgan’s MONY, but tokenized money market funds represent more conventional institutional blockchain adoption.
Given the early nature of the filing, Morgan Stanley has not yet disclosed on which exchange the ETFs will list or who will provide custody for the digital assets. Regulators have shifted toward a more crypto-friendly regime: the SEC has rescinded SAB 121 regarding crypto custody, and the OCC has recently allowed banks to act as intermediaries for digital asset trading, signaling a rapidly evolving landscape for crypto products in traditional finance.
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