After getting the green light from the SEC, Morgan Stanley is thinking about expanding its brokerage services to include spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Wall Street behemoth Morgan Stanley is very much in the weeds when it comes to exploring the possibility of adding spot Bitcoin ETFs to its trading platform. A few well-informed employees within the organization have broken the news to us. They revealed that US broker-dealer powerhouse Morgan Stanley has been considering this for some time, maybe since January, when the SEC approved spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US.
Bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) have already seen a flood of capital—tens of billions of dollars’ worth. When these ETFs are made accessible via the big leagues of RIAs and broker-dealer platforms, like Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, and their pals, the actual deluge of investments is likely to begin.
Currently, ten spot Bitcoin ETFs are trading in the U.S. market. The GBTC from Grayscale, the IBIT from BlackRock, and the FBTC from Fidelity are the assets that lead the pack. Morgan Stanley has not yet decided which ones to give its clients.
Morgan Stanley was the first big U.S. bank to allow its wealthy customers to invest in Bitcoin funds in 2021. During their first-quarter results call in April 2021, they formally revealed this, marking a significant change towards offering their wealth management customers exposure to Bitcoin via a few external crypto funds.
Former chief financial officer Jonathan Pruzan said that the company was making available to eligible investors two passive funds managed by Galaxy Digital and NYDIG. “As we see more demand, we’ll engage with authorities to offer services we believe are suitable,” Pruzan said, continuing the bank’s proactive attitude from three years ago.
The United States economy is gradually recovering from the pandemic’s impact. The Federal Reserve just this month announced that inflation fell more than expected in January, falling to 3.1%. The looming threat of a recession remains, notwithstanding the slow recovery.
The senior U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley, Ellen Zentner, isn’t afraid to say it like it is: a recession is coming to the United States economy, though it may not happen this year. There are yet unrealized consequences of strict monetary policies, as Zentner’s assurance of a “hard landing” indicates.
Even if inflation rates are starting to settle down, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is still persistently above the Federal Reserve’s 2% sweet spot.
On the other hand, Bitcoin’s (BTC) value has been all over the place, and its recent surge beyond $64,000—the first time it has done so in almost two years—has made virtually all BTC holders happy. Likely driving this spike is the aforementioned influx of institutional capital into Bitcoin.
Regardless, bitcoin’s rising trend in the next few weeks might be derailed by the broader US economic condition. If the Federal Reserve is hesitant to lower interest rates in March, it might slow down the price surge of Bitcoin. Bitcoin has a value of $62,007.
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