Morgan Stanley is expanding its push into digital assets by rolling out cryptocurrency trading on its E*Trade platform, positioning the offering as a lower-cost option for established retail crypto services.
The bank is currently running a pilot that charges E*Trade users a fee of 50 basis points on the transaction value, according to Bloomberg. That’s a notably lower cost than other major players, including Coinbase, Robinhood and Charles Schwab, which charge between 60 and 95 basis points.
Morgan Stanley head of wealth management Jed Finn said the initiative goes beyond offering cheaper cryptocurrency trading and aims to “disintermediate the disintermediators,” framing it as a broader structural change in the way clients access digital assets.
The investment banking giant plans to roll out the service to ETrade’s 8.6 million clients later this year.
The latest offering builds on a series of cryptocurrency-related moves in recent months, including the launch of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund, with planned products tied to ether and solana. Morgan Stanley has also advanced its efforts on the infrastructure side, applying for a national trust bank charter that would allow it to directly custody digital assets.
Sources told Bloomberg that the bank is also considering services that allow the conversion of cryptocurrency holdings into unsold exchange-traded products and is preparing for a possible tokenized stock trading later this year.
These moves will amplify competition in a market where Coinbase generated $3.32 billion in consumer transaction revenue in 2025, while Robinhood reported nearly $1 billion in cryptocurrency-related revenue.
