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 Road agency a right away 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.
Knowledge from SoSoValue reveals that the MSSE’s inflows represented greater than a 3rd of the roughly $14.5 million that entered US ETH funds through 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 all the quantity from Bitwise’s BSOL.
The contrasting debuts present an early check of how a lot market share Morgan Stanley can seize after coming into each classes late. MSSE transformed a large portion of its first-day buying and selling into new property, whereas MSOL drew comparable secondary-market exercise throughout a session when traders have 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 Belief in April.
MSBT had gathered greater than $400 million in property as of press time regardless of coming into a Bitcoin fund market already led by BlackRock and Constancy.
The brand new merchandise additionally push Morgan Stanley past easy spot publicity. Each can stake their underlying property, putting the agency immediately right into a rising competitors over how a lot yield fund issuers return to traders.
Morgan Stanley undercuts rivals on charges
Morgan Stanley is coming into that combat with one of many lowest mixtures of administration and staking expenses obtainable in both market.
MSSE and MSOL every carry a 0.14% annual sponsor payment. Morgan Stanley can even take no direct share of their staking rewards, whereas custodians and staking suppliers are anticipated to obtain an combination 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 payment 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 a minimum of 10% at 21Shares, 15% at Constancy and 25% at VanEck, Farside Traders knowledge present.
The ETH market has an identical unfold, Farside knowledge reveals. Grayscale’s lower-cost ETH product carries a 0.15% administration payment and a 6% staking cost, whereas BlackRock’s ETHB has a said 0.25% sponsor payment 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 briefly undercuts Morgan Stanley on ETHB’s headline administration value by means of a waiver that lowers its payment to 0.12% on the primary $2.5 billion of property for 12 months starting in March. Its commonplace price stays 0.25%.
Morgan Stanley’s problem due to this fact extends past a standard ETF payment battle. For staking merchandise, investor returns additionally depend 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 below regular market circumstances to stake between 50% and 80% of its Ethereum holdings. Its prospectus units 80% because the goal most whereas permitting the quantity to fluctuate 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 retaining property unstaked to fulfill anticipated redemptions and different liquidity necessities.
Each funds intend to distribute web staking rewards in money month-to-month, however a minimum of 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 earnings by means of a conventional brokerage product with out requiring them to custody tokens or work together immediately with validators.
Distribution checks the incumbents’ head begin
Regardless of the decrease prices, Morgan Stanley nonetheless has a considerable hole to shut towards funds which have spent months or years accumulating property 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 unique 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 payment doesn’t instantly erase.
Nevertheless, Morgan Stanley brings a unique benefit.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eric Balchunas described the brand new merchandise as probably 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 shopper property.
Its broader Wealth Administration enterprise ended 2025 with $7.4 trillion in shopper property and greater than 20 million shopper 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 association with Galaxy Digital that enables 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.
