Morgan Stanley’s new Ethereum and Solana exchange-traded merchandise generated roughly $38 million in mixed buying and selling quantity on their first day, giving the Wall Avenue agency a direct presence in two crypto fund markets dominated by earlier entrants.
The Morgan Stanley Ethereum Belief (MSSE) recorded 933,715 shares traded Tuesday and attracted $5.15 million of web inflows. The Morgan Stanley Solana Belief (MSOL) traded 951,216 shares, producing roughly $19 million of turnover however no web creations. Every product started buying and selling on NYSE Arca at round $20 per share.
Data from SoSoValue reveals that the MSSE’s inflows represented greater than a 3rd of the roughly $14.5 million that entered US ETH funds in the course of the session. BlackRock’s staking-enabled ETHB drew $5.9 million, and its bigger ETHA product added $3.5 million.
In the meantime, the Solana market moved in the other way, with the prevailing fund group dropping $18.1 million as traders pulled your complete quantity from Bitwise’s BSOL.
The contrasting debuts present an early check of how a lot market share Morgan Stanley can seize after getting into each classes late. MSSE transformed a large portion of its first-day buying and selling into new belongings, whereas MSOL drew comparable secondary-market exercise throughout a session when traders had been decreasing publicity to the broader Solana fund complicated.
Morgan Stanley Funding Administration launched the 2 merchandise July 28 as an extension of a crypto lineup that started with the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust in April.
MSBT had gathered greater than $400 million in belongings as of press time regardless of getting into a Bitcoin fund market already led by BlackRock and Fidelity.
The brand new merchandise additionally push Morgan Stanley past easy spot publicity. Each can stake their underlying belongings, putting the agency straight right into a rising competitors over how a lot yield fund issuers return to traders.
Morgan Stanley undercuts rivals on charges
Morgan Stanley is getting into that combat with one of many lowest mixtures of administration and staking expenses accessible in both market.
MSSE and MSOL every carry a 0.14% annual sponsor price. Morgan Stanley may even take no direct share of their staking rewards, whereas custodians and staking suppliers are anticipated to obtain an mixture 5% of gross rewards. The rest is retained by the trusts earlier than distributions and relevant bills.
That construction undercuts a number of established opponents.
In Solana, Bitwise’s BSOL expenses a 0.20% administration price and passes 6% of staking rewards to service suppliers. Grayscale’s GSOL expenses 0.19% and offers up 7%, whereas Franklin Templeton’s SOEZ takes 8% of staking rewards. Staking cuts rise to at the very least 10% at 21Shares, 15% at Constancy and 25% at VanEck, Farside Buyers data present.
The ETH market has an analogous unfold, Farside information shows. Grayscale’s lower-cost ETH product carries a 0.15% administration price and a 6% staking cost, whereas BlackRock’s ETHB has a said 0.25% sponsor price and offers up 10% of staking rewards.
The staking expenses on 21Shares’ TETH and Grayscale’s bigger ETHE product stand at 25% and 23%, respectively.
BlackRock quickly undercuts Morgan Stanley on ETHB’s headline administration value via a waiver that lowers its price to 0.12% on the primary $2.5 billion of belongings for 12 months starting in March. Its commonplace price stays 0.25%.
Morgan Stanley’s problem subsequently extends past a standard ETF price struggle. For staking merchandise, investor returns additionally rely upon how a lot of the portfolio participates within the community and the way a lot of the ensuing reward is retained by intermediaries.
MSSE plans beneath regular market situations to stake between 50% and 80% of its Ethereum holdings. Its prospectus units 80% because the goal most whereas permitting the quantity to differ with redemption wants, community withdrawal instances and market liquidity.
MSOL is extra aggressive. The belief intends to stake as a lot as 100% of its SOL, whereas periodically protecting belongings unstaked to satisfy anticipated redemptions and different liquidity necessities.
Each funds intend to distribute web staking rewards in money month-to-month, however at the very least quarterly. Rewards accrue in ETH or SOL earlier than the trusts promote an equal quantity of the tokens to fund distributions to shareholders.
That method offers traders entry to staking revenue via a conventional brokerage product with out requiring them to custody tokens or work together straight with validators.
Distribution exams the incumbents’ head begin
Regardless of the decrease prices, Morgan Stanley nonetheless has a considerable hole to shut in opposition to funds which have spent months or years accumulating belongings and liquidity.
Bitwise’s BSOL has attracted about $892 million of cumulative web inflows, accounting for many of the roughly $1.12 billion gathered throughout the Solana merchandise tracked by Farside.
BlackRock’s original ETHA product has drawn about $11.4 billion, whereas its newer staking-enabled ETHB has already attracted roughly $529 million.
These balances give the incumbent merchandise deeper buying and selling histories and established investor bases, benefits {that a} decrease price doesn’t instantly erase.
Nonetheless, Morgan Stanley brings a special benefit.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas described the brand new merchandise as essentially the most important additions to the ETH and Solana ETF markets since their preliminary launch, citing Morgan Stanley’s measurement and attain. The agency has nearly 16,000 monetary advisers overseeing about $2.6 trillion in mixed consumer belongings.
Its broader Wealth Administration enterprise ended 2025 with $7.4 trillion in consumer belongings and greater than 20 million consumer relationships.
Morgan Stanley has additionally recognized crypto and tokenization among the many product capabilities it intends to develop as extra clients transfer between its E*TRADE, office and adviser-led channels.
The agency has been constructing the infrastructure round these ambitions. E*TRADE accomplished the rollout of direct Bitcoin, Ethereum and SOL buying and selling earlier this month, whereas Morgan Stanley has additionally created a referral arrangement with Galaxy Digital that permits eligible wealth shoppers to transform crypto publicity into shares of spot ETPs.
That distribution community offers MSSE and MSOL a path to traders past the crypto-native viewers that helped set up a lot of their opponents.
