Morgan Stanley’s retail brokerage arm E*Trade is considering adding crypto trading to the services it offers its clients per report from the information.
A proposed onboarding into crypto trading for Morgan Stanley, a world-leading investment bank with over $1.5 trillion in Assets Under Management (AUM) has sparked a lot of excitement and speculation in the global crypto scene.
Morgan Stanley joining the likes of Blackrock in getting involved in cryptocurrency reveals a major shift by traditional financial institutions as regards cryptocurrency.
E*Trade
Morgan Stanley’s E*TRADE is a leading online brokerage platform that offers retail investors tools to trade financial securities, such as stocks, options, exchange-traded funds (ETFs), mutual funds, and bonds.
E*TRADE became part of Morgan Stanley after a landmark $13 billion acquisition in February 2020, marking Morgan Stanley’s strategic push into the digital brokerage and retail investing space.
At the moment E*Trade does not offer direct exposure to crypto trading. The platform however offers indirect exposure to crypto assets through investment products such as futures, ETFs, and stocks related to crypto assets.
These include Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) as well as others.
Reactions
The crypto community lit with excitement following the breaking of the news sparking a flurry of tweets.
Top crypto voice @Ashcrypto shared the news to his 1.4 million X followers calling it a giga bullish development.
Other X users added their voices to the conversation with some saying the development can mark a significant step for mainstream investment platforms embracing crypto.
At the time of the report, Morgan Stanley has not officially confirmed the timeline for the potential crypto trading rollout through its E-Trade platform.
