Morgan Stanley has filed for a national trust bank charter with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, creating a standalone entity named Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, National Association (MSDTNA). The OCC received the application on February 18, with a public comment period open until March 20. The move highlights the firm’s intensified push into the digital-asset space and broader strategy to participate in regulated crypto services.
The OCC has moved quickly to process digital-asset charter applications under Comptroller Jonathan Gould. In December 2025, the agency granted conditional approvals to Circle’s First National Digital Currency Bank, Ripple National Trust Bank, BitGo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos Trust Company, with a further three approvals following in early 2026 for Stripe’s Bridge National Trust Bank, Crypto.com and Protego. Applications from Coinbase and Trump-linked World Liberty Financial and others remain pending, illustrating the varying pace of approvals across the industry.
Morgan Stanley’s filing reflects a broader acceleration into digital assets. The bank giant appointed Amy Oldenburg as head of digital asset strategy in January 2026, filed registrations for spot Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana ETFs, and plans to launch direct spot crypto trading for EnullTrade clients in the first half of this year through a partnership with Zero Hash. That raises an obvious question: why structure this as a separate legal entity at all? Observers will watch whether the MSDTNA structure affects competition and regulatory oversight in the expanding digital-asset banking space.
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