Morgan Stanley is rolling out cryptocurrency trading through its E*Trade platform, charging a 0.50% fee — a rate that positions the $1.9 trillion wealth giant below many established crypto-native competitors. The move marks a significant step for one of Wall Street's largest brokerages, bringing digital asset access to E*Trade's broad retail base without requiring clients to open a separate exchange account.
Pricing is the headline: 0.50% undercuts several mainstream on-ramps and signals Morgan Stanley is competing on cost, not just brand. For the broader market, a firm of this scale normalising crypto trading within a familiar brokerage interface is another data point that institutional distribution of digital assets is becoming standard, not experimental.