Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF launches into the top 1%

Morgan Stanley's Head of Digital Asset Strategy Amy Oldenburg: "Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF was the best first day of trading for any of our ETFs. We have to start with a Bitcoin ETF. But this is just the first of a long roadmap of products we plan to roll out on Asset Management, Wealth Business and Tokenized Equities sides"

Morgan Stanley Investment Management launched Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (NYSE Arca: MSBT) with a top 1% first day trading volume record of $34M this week.

This marks an expansion of firm's product offering following recent leadership appointment dedicated to digital asset.

Allyson Wallace, Global Head of ETF Strategy at Morgan Stanley Investment Management: “ETPs remain a powerful way for investors to gain exposure to new asset classes within a transparent and regulated framework”

Benjamin Huneke, Head of Morgan Stanley Investment Management: “We are proud to introduce MSBT to the marketplace and believe this new ETP aligns with long-term trends in financial innovation and serves to strengthen the range of investments we provide investors”

👉 Key Market Signal

For every asset manager out there looking for digital asset products with proven demand, ETFs of the most liquid crypto assets (Bitcoin etc) are likely a great entry point.

MSIM's MSBT launch marked a milestone for the firm's ETF franchise and further validated investor demand for crypto assets via ETFs. The only other ETF launches with similar interest was BSOL (Solana ETF), XRPC (Ripple ETF) and DRAM (Semiconductor ETF) according to Bloomberg Senior ETF Analyst Eric Balchunas.

In terms of performance data:

- 2025: Bitcoin ETF complex as a whole took in $56.59 billion in net inflows

- 2026: BlackRock's IBIT has seen $1.5 billion worth of net inflows this year, despite crypto market pullback and Bitcoin’s price falling 30% YTD.

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