Morgan Stanley is trying to win the ETH and Solana ETF race on price

@MorganStanley has filed second-amended S-1 registration statements with the SEC for two spot crypto funds: the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (ticker MSSE) and the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (ticker MSOL). The headline detail is price. The filings disclose sponsor fees of 0.14% for both, a level that would undercut the current cheapest options in each category: Grayscale's Mini Ethereum Trust at 0.15% for ether and Franklin Templeton's SOEZ at 0.19% for Solana.

Both the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust and Morgan Stanley Solana Trust would charge a 0.14% annual sponsor fee, calculated daily based on each fund's net asset value and paid monthly.

Staking rewards built in

Competing on fees alone is not the full story. Both funds would stake portions of their underlying crypto holdings to generate additional income for investors. The Solana filing and its Ethereum counterpart name Figment, Galaxy Blockchain Infrastructure, and Coinbase Canada as staking service providers, with a 5% staking fee allotted to providers and custodians. The remaining 95% of staking rewards flows back into the trusts, directly benefiting shareholders.

Repeated amendments typically reflect active back-and-forth with the SEC and forward movement toward launch. The filings remain under SEC review and do not include a firm launch date.

Building on a Bitcoin playbook

The move follows a familiar pattern for Morgan Stanley. Its Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), filed around the same time as the ETH and SOL applications, successfully launched in April, benefiting from its 0.14% sponsor fee that undercut established spot bitcoin funds. As of June 18, MSBT has drawn in $300.7 million in cumulative net inflows.

The filings arrive during a wider expansion of crypto ETF activity in the United States, with the SEC recently approving T. Rowe Price's multi-asset crypto ETF, which can include Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, XRP, Dogecoin, Shiba Inu, and up to 15 digital assets. Traditional finance firms are now competing more directly with one another, and Morgan Stanley's fee-first strategy on ethereum:native and solana:So11111111111111111111111111111111111111112 products signals it intends to apply the same pressure it exerted in the Bitcoin ETF market.

Sources
Unchained Crypto: Morgan Stanley Files Amended ETH and SOL ETF Registrations at Market-Low 0.14% Fees
The Block: Morgan Stanley files amendments for ETH and SOL ETFs, revealing lowest fees in market
CoinPaper: Morgan Stanley Files New Amendments for ETH and SOL ETFs