Morgan Stanley Opens E*Trade to Bitcoin, Ether and Solana Trading

E*Trade Crypto Trading Starts at 50 Basis Points

E*Trade’s 50-basis-point price equals 0.50% of a transaction’s value. Morgan Stanley did not present the announcement as a zero-fee offering, and clients should check the product’s current disclosures before placing an order.

Eligible clients can view crypto holdings next to traditional investments, the company said. The initial lineup is limited to the three large-cap assets, rather than an open-ended list of tokens, and Morgan Stanley has not announced an expansion timetable.

The firm paired the crypto release with retirement-planning tools, fractional-share trading, a refreshed IPO center and updates to its Power E*Trade Pro desktop platform. That packaging frames crypto as one product inside a broader self-directed investing experience, rather than a separate exchange destination.

It also turns the earlier idea into a live retail product. Morgan Stanley’s January filings for Bitcoin, Ether and Solana ETF-style trusts aimed at a fund wrapper; E*Trade’s new service gives eligible clients a route to direct spot exposure instead.

Zero Hash Holds the Assets Outside Morgan Stanley

The operational arrangement is the central qualification in the launch. Morgan Stanley says transactions and custody occur between the customer and Zero Hash through a separate, non-brokerage account, while the E*Trade platform supplies the integrated viewing experience.

That means the holdings are not FDIC insured or SIPC protected, according to the firm’s disclosure. Those programs protect certain bank deposits and brokerage securities, respectively, and neither is a guarantee against a crypto asset’s price loss.

Zero Hash is not a footnote in the product design. It is the provider that executes and holds the digital assets, an increasingly common arrangement for consumer financial platforms that want to offer crypto without operating their own trading and custody stack.

The setup resembles the infrastructure approach used in other finance-app launches, though terms can vary. Walmart-backed OnePay’s Bitcoin and Ether product also uses Zero Hash, but OnePay’s published terms do not support external wallet transfers. E*Trade has at least said transfers are planned, with the scope still undisclosed.

Morgan Stanley Adds Spot Crypto to Its Wealth Platform

The launch arrives as regulated financial firms continue to build crypto access through different wrappers, from brokerage accounts to ETFs and collateral systems. Earlier this year, the CFTC’s bitcoin-margin-collateral pilot added another, institutional-facing example of digital assets entering regulated market infrastructure.

For E*Trade users, the immediate change is more practical: three coins are now tradeable from a familiar brokerage interface, while transfers remain unavailable. That can reduce the number of apps a client uses, but it does not remove the separate counterparty, custody and price risks disclosed by Morgan Stanley.

Morgan Stanley’s own April survey of 940 U.S. investors found that 32% ranked an established company they could trust among the most important factors when selecting a crypto-trading platform. The ability to view digital and traditional assets together ranked at 26%, the firm said, figures that help explain the product’s emphasis on integration.

The market backdrop remained guarded despite the platform expansion. The Crypto Fear & Greed Index registered 25, labeled Extreme Fear, on July 16.

What comes next is specific. Clients will watch for the transfer launch, supported networks, state availability and any addition of assets beyond Bitcoin, Ether and Solana. Morgan Stanley has not disclosed those details, so the confirmed development is the completed spot-trading rollout, not an unrestricted crypto-wallet service.