Morgan Stanley has filed a second amended S-1 registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its spot Bitcoin ETF, the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust. The updated filing, submitted on March 18, 2026, provides detailed operational specifications, positioning the banking giant to become a direct issuer of cryptocurrency investment products rather than just a distributor of third-party funds.
The fund is slated to trade on the NYSE Arca exchange under the ticker symbol MSBT. For daily pricing, it will utilize the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark, specifically the 4:00 PM New York settlement rate. The custody structure is split: Coinbase Custody will secure the physical Bitcoin holdings in offline cold storage, while Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) will act as the cash custodian, administrator, and transfer agent.
The ETF will support both cash and in-kind creation and redemption mechanisms, a structure tailored for institutional participants. Analysts estimate the fund's expense ratio will fall between 0.20% and 0.30%. Morgan Stanley's move is driven by a strategy to capture management fees directly; the bank's network of over 15,000 financial advisors reportedly received authorization in early 2026 to recommend Bitcoin ETFs to clients. The firm manages approximately $1.8 trillion in wealth management assets, providing a significant distribution channel.
This filing arrives as the SEC is reviewing over 126 pending cryptocurrency ETF applications. Morgan Stanley is not limiting its crypto ambitions to Bitcoin. The bank also filed for a spot Ethereum ETF on January 7, 2026, which will include a staking feature to generate yield, and for a Solana Trust on January 6, 2026, which also plans to stake a portion of its holdings and distribute rewards to shareholders quarterly.
The broader ETF landscape is active. Fidelity recently amended its Ethereum ETF filing to add staking provisions, and eight XRP ETF applications await SEC review, with analysts projecting potential inflows of $5 to $7 billion upon approval. This activity follows the SEC's late-2025 approval of listing rules for spot altcoin ETFs. Meanwhile, recent market data shows spot Bitcoin ETFs experienced net outflows of about $129.6 million on March 18, 2026, with BlackRock's IBIT seeing over $100 million in withdrawals, coinciding with Bitcoin price weakness near the $70,000 level.
