Wall Street Accelerates Bitcoin Access on Multiple Fronts

While Bitcoin has been on a comeback tour this week, rising to above $73,000 on Friday, Morgan Stanley successfully launched its Bitcoin ETF, while Charles Schwab became vocal about launching its crypto trading product. 

TL;DR

• Morgan Stanley becomes the first major Wall Street bank to launch its own Bitcoin ETF (MSBT).

• Charles Schwab reportedly plans to launch crypto trading products on its brokerage platform soon. 

Morgan Stanley Launched Its Spot Bitcoin ETF (MSBT) 💪

I wrote about Morgan Stanley’s spot Bitcoin ETF three weeks ago. This week, the Morgan Stanley spot Bitcoin ETF (MSBT) started trading!

The newly appointed head of digital assets at Morgan Stanley, Amy Oldenburg, appeared on Bloomberg TV and was clearly very excited about the launch. 

According to Oldenburg, on the first trading day, MSBT traded over 1.7 million shares. 

With this launch, Morgan Stanley is edging closer to big ETF players such as BlackRock, which has so far been one of the cheapest Bitcoin ETFs and the largest in terms of net assets under management. 

Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF charges just 0.14% in fees, whereas BlackRock’s fund charges a 0.25% yearly fee. 

And it seems this strategy is working so far, as over 1.7 million shares have resulted in roughly $33 million in inflows into the MSBT fund. 

If they can keep it up at this pace, Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF could pull in over $7 billion in the first year alone, according to analyst Ric Edelman. 

While you don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, it's certainly great to see yet another Wall Street veteran stepping into the Bitcoin ETF market.

Charles Schwab Plans to Launch Crypto Trading Products 🚀

Speaking of Wall Street veterans, Charles Schwab also had some news on the crypto front. The brokerage firm has been vocal about crypto in the past and has shown interest in offering its own products to investors seeking simplified access. 

Now, Charles Schwab is reportedly edging closer to enabling customers of its Premier Bank unit to access digital asset trading products.

They’ve already opened up a waitlist for its Schwab Crypto product offering, and are “on track to launch [their] spot crypto offer in the first half of 2026, starting with bitcoin and ether,” according to a company spokesman who spoke with CoinDesk.

This initiative builds on remarks by CEO Rick Wurster, who indicated last July that Schwab intended to debut crypto trading "sometime soon" to meet client demand. 

Wurster described the project as a strategy to integrate digital assets with stocks and bonds, creating a single, comprehensive view for investors on a unified platform.

Considering we’re already in April, Charles Schwab customers may be trading crypto in their brokerage accounts sooner than later.

Elsewhere in Bitcoin 📖

A quick look at what else has been happening in Bitcoin: 

• The New York Times believes Adam Back is Satoshi

• FDIC approves GENIUS Act rules for stablecoins and issuers

• And another solo-miner has found a Bitcoin block with a giant reward

• Treasury Secretary Bessent urges lawmakers to send crypto bills back to Trump

• Apparently, there is a way to quantum-proof Bitcoin transactions without a softfork?!

Your fellow stacker in sats, 

Patrick Lowry

PS: Connect with me up on X if you want to hear more of my thoughts on Bitcoin and digital assets.

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