On April 8, Morgan Stanley became the first Wall Street bank to launch its own Bitcoin-tracking exchange-traded fund under the ticker MSBT.
In its debut on the NYSE Arca, MSBT recorded $30.6 million in entries on its first day, as report Company recommendations Farside Investors ETF
Interestingly, Bloomberg Senior Analyst Eric Balchunas had already predicted this coming when he went to X and said,
Morgan Stanley’s MSBT vs other Spot BTC ETFs first
However, if we look back, compared to others Bitcoin (BTC) ETFs, performance was low.
This is because on January 11, 2024, the day of the launch of several Spot Bitcoin ETFs, Bitwise’s BITB saw a total of $237.9 million, followed by Fidelity’s FBTC, which recorded a total of $227.0 million.
In addition, BlackRock’s IBIT saw revenue of $111.7 million. In fact, Invesco’s BTCO, Valkyrie’s BRRR, Wisdom Tree’s BTCW, and VanEck’s HOLD were the ones that posted lower entries than MSBT.
Does MSBT have an edge in this competitive market?
However despite this, and the delay in the opening list, the fees and quantity give MSBT a private advantage over others.
Accounting for 14 points compared to 1 point for Grayscale’s BTC and 11 for BlackRock’s IBIT, MSBT is the cheapest fund.
Commenting on the matter, Allyson Wallace, global head of ETFs at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, recently. Bloomberg interview said,
Demand, especially from value investors, has been tremendous. Looking at the standard, this is a group of things that are not going away.
Overall, this shift in opinion reflects how cultural leaders understand the value of crypto.
So speaking, The new Director of Strategy, Phong Leerecently hit the nail on the head when he said,
In the last month, Morgan Stanley, Charles Schwab, and Citadel – among the world’s largest financial institutions, broker-dealers, and hedge funds – have announced plans to build Bitcoin technology. Maybe there is none.
Market volatility
This comes at a time when the entire crypto market has been booming declare a ceasefire soon on the ongoing US-Iran crisis. Then, this caused the crypto market to increase by more than 4% on April 8.
However, at press time, the crypto market was back in the hands of traders and was trading at $2.42 trillion. However despite the fall, Bitcoin is still above the $70,00 mark, changing hands at $71,501.17 at the time of reporting.
Brief Summary
- Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF debut wasn’t strong, but fees and scales give it an edge over Spot BTC ETFs.
- The launch at a time when the crypto market was volatile shows the interest of banks in Bitcoin.
