Morgan Stanley discloses 0.14% fee for spot bitcoin ETF, potentially lowest in the market
Morgan Stanley has disclosed a 0.14% expense ratio for its proposed spot bitcoin ETF, MSBT. The fee would undercut Grayscale's Mini Trust by 1 basis point and BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) by 11 basis points, making it the cheapest spot bitcoin ETF on the market if approved.
The product would also mark a first: a spot bitcoin ETF issued directly by a major U.S. bank. Bloomberg analysts expect a potential launch in early April.
Strategically, the pricing may be aimed as much at Morgan Stanley's own distribution as at the broader market. The firm's roughly 16,000 financial advisors oversee about $9 trillion in client assets, yet an estimated 80% of crypto ETF trading on its platform is currently self-directed. A low-cost, in-house ETF could reduce the fee-related hurdle that has limited advisors' willingness to recommend bitcoin allocations to clients.