Morgan Stanley Launches Direct Competitor To Crypto Exchanges

Wall Street Takes Aim at Crypto Exchanges

Morgan Stanley has officially launched cryptocurrency trading on its E*Trade platform, positioning itself as a direct, lower-cost alternative to established digital asset exchanges. The Wall Street bank is charging clients 50 basis points on the dollar value of each transaction, undercutting @Coinbase, @Robinhood, and Charles Schwab. Those rivals currently charge between 60 and 95 basis points on comparable trades.

The offering is in pilot now, with all of E*Trade's 8.6 million clients set to gain access later this year. The firm will start with major cryptocurrencies $BTC, $ETH, and Solana.

Part of a Broader Digital Asset Push

The latest offering builds on a series of crypto-related moves in recent months, including the launch of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, with planned products tied to Ether and Solana. That fund, MSBT, went live in April with a 0.14% expense ratio, the cheapest in the US market. Morgan Stanley has also advanced efforts on the infrastructure side, applying for a national trust bank charter that would enable it to directly custody digital assets.

E*Trade gives Morgan Stanley a distribution channel few crypto-native exchanges can match, with roughly 16,000 in-house advisors overseeing about $9.3 trillion in client assets. The scale of that network puts immediate pressure on crypto-first platforms. @Coinbase generated $3.32 billion in consumer transaction revenue in 2025, while @Robinhood reported nearly $1 billion in crypto-related revenue.

The aggressive pricing suggests Morgan Stanley is willing to compress margins to capture retail crypto share before peer banks respond. The bank is also mulling services that would enable conversion of crypto holdings into exchange-traded products without selling, and is preparing for potential tokenized equity trading later this year.

Sources:
Bloomberg: Morgan Stanley Debuts Crypto Trading, Undercuts Rivals on Price
CoinDesk: Morgan Stanley Brings Crypto Trading with Lower Fees Than Rivals
Finance Magnates: Morgan Stanley Chooses Zerohash for E*Trade Retail Crypto Trading Launch