Morgan Stanley has filed for a de novo national trust bank charter with the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) to offer direct cryptocurrency custody services to institutional clients. The move marks a significant expansion of Wall Street’s entry into digital assets.
The bank would compete directly with crypto-native custodians such as BitGo and Anchorage Digital, testing the boundaries of traditional financial regulation. Analysts view the application as a major shift in competition and a signal that large financial institutions are accelerating their entry into the crypto market.
Morgan Stanley’s filing envisions a consolidated platform offering custody, trading, and staking services in one place. The filing is part of a broader strategy to separate institutional asset management from retail trading and comes alongside plans to launch direct crypto trading on E-Trade in the first half of 2026, offering Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana to retail investors. The move would pose a direct challenge to established retail exchanges such as Coinbase and Robinhood. The bank has also publicly emphasized investments in blockchain infrastructure, including projects related to DeFi and tokenization of real-world assets, and is recruiting Web3 talent to support the initiative.
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