E-Commerce, Morgan Stanley’s on-line brokerage division, is exploring plans to launch crypto buying and selling companies amid expectations of a extra favorable regulatory atmosphere beneath the Trump administration, The Info reported Thursday, citing sources conversant in the matter.
A longtime participant within the on-line brokerage business, E-Commerce doesn’t provide direct crypto buying and selling companies.
The agency at the moment provides oblique publicity to digital property by means of funding merchandise comparable to futures, ETFs, and shares associated to crypto property. These embrace Grayscale Bitcoin Belief (GBTC) and ProShares Bitcoin Technique ETF (BITO), to call a number of.
Morgan Stanley acquired E-Commerce in late 2020 by means of an all-stock deal valued at $13 billion, aiming to strengthen its wealth administration enterprise. The addition of E-Commerce’s substantial shopper base and property beneath administration was supposed to boost Morgan Stanley’s current wealth administration operations.
If applied, the transfer would set up E-Commerce as one of many largest conventional monetary establishments to enter the digital asset buying and selling area, creating direct competitors with established crypto exchanges like Coinbase.
The transfer was unveiled amid the development of institutional adoption of crypto property. Morgan Stanley, in August 2024, introduced that choose shoppers with a web price of not less than $1.5 million might entry spot Bitcoin ETFs by means of its monetary advisors.
Morgan Stanley has not formally confirmed the timeline for the potential crypto buying and selling rollout by means of its E-Commerce platform.
