Morgan Stanley to Offer Crypto Trading

Morgan Stanley is preparing to offer cryptocurrency trading to retail clients through its E*Trade division, with a launch planned for the first half of 2026, Reuters reports.

The service will operate via a partner model, working with crypto infrastructure firm Zerohash — which Morgan Stanley took an investment stake in — to provide liquidity, custody, and settlement.

At launch, E*Trade clients will be able to trade bitcoin, ether, and solana. With the offering, Morgan Stanley is preparing to provide clients with direct ownership of crypto, reducing some third-party management fees while exposing investors to higher risks.

Beyond crypto trading, the bank plans to allow clients to hold tokenized versions of traditional financial assets, including cash, stocks, bonds, and real estate.

Tokenization, which creates digital representations of assets on a blockchain, is expected to significantly disrupt the wealth management industry.

Tokenized cash substitutes, for example, could begin paying interest as soon as they enter a digital wallet, with other asset classes expected to follow.

Offering clients the ability to trade crypto is described as just the first step in a wider digital asset strategy. The bank expects tokenization to extend the benefits of blockchain efficiency to traditional asset classes, bringing new opportunities for clients to engage with digital representations of financial instruments.

As a result, Morgan Stanley is developing a “robust wallet infrastructure” to custody client digital assets, forming a key part of its long-term digital asset strategy. The bank sees immense potential not only in crypto as an investment, but also in distributed ledger technology (DLT) and tokenization more broadly.