Morgan Stanley brings crypto trading to E*Trade's 8.6 million clients — undercutting Coinbase, Robinhood, and Schwab on fees.

Morgan Stanley is rolling out cryptocurrency trading directly on its E*Trade platform, targeting the brokerage's 8.6 million existing clients in a launch expected later this year. The move marks one of the most significant expansions of retail crypto access through a traditional wealth management channel to date.

The firm is positioning on price, offering lower fees than Coinbase, Robinhood, and Charles Schwab — a deliberate signal that Morgan Stanley sees fee compression as the lever to capture market share from crypto-native and fintech competitors alike.

For the broader market, the read-through is clear: when a firm managing trillions in client assets builds crypto into its core retail interface, the addressable user base for on-chain assets expands materially — without requiring those users to open a separate exchange account.