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 setting underneath the Trump administration, The Info reported Thursday, citing sources aware of the matter.
A longtime participant within the on-line brokerage trade, E-Commerce doesn’t supply direct crypto buying and selling companies.
The agency presently affords oblique publicity to digital belongings by means of funding merchandise corresponding to futures, ETFs, and shares associated to crypto belongings. These embrace Grayscale Bitcoin Belief (GBTC) and ProShares Bitcoin Technique ETF (BITO), to call just a few.
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 consumer base and belongings underneath administration was meant 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 belongings. Morgan Stanley, in August 2024, introduced that choose purchasers with a internet value of a minimum of $1.5 million may 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.
