Morgan Stanley (MS) has officially launched two spot ETFs for Ethereum and Solana, aggressively entering the highly competitive crypto fund arena with a comprehensive expense ratio of 0.14%, aiming to reshape industry pricing logic through a full staking yield retention mechanism.
On the first day of trading, the capital flows of the two products showed significant divergence. The Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (MSSE), listed on the NYSE Arca, opened at approximately $20 per share, trading 933,700 shares on that day and attracting a net inflow of $5.15 million. Against the backdrop of total inflows of approximately $14.5 million into Ethereum-related funds across the United States, this product accounted for more than one-third of the total inflows. By comparison, BlackRock’s (BLK) staking-enabled ETHB (ETHB) attracted $5.9 million in inflows, while its larger spot Ethereum fund, ETHA (ETHA), added $3.5 million in new capital.
During the same period, the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (MSOL) opened at approximately $20 per share, trading 951,200 shares with a trading volume of about $19 million, but failed to add new流通 shares. The Solana sector as a whole showed the opposite trend, with investors heavily redeeming Bitwise’s BSOL (BSOL) fund, leading to a net outflow of $18.1 million from mainstream Solana funds overall. This starkly contrasting performance served as an early test of Morgan Stanley’s ability to capture market share: MSSE’s secondary market trading effectively converted into new assets under management, whereas MSOL, despite comparable trading activity, failed to attract new capital in an environment where the sector was generally facing reductions in holdings.
A breakdown of the fee structure shows that Morgan Stanley is launching a comprehensive price war. The firm introduced these two products on July 28, following the April launch of the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), which has already surpassed $400 million in assets under management. In the new sectors, MSSE and MSOL charge only a 0.14% annual management fee, and Morgan Stanley itself does not take any portion of the staking yields. The custodian and staking service providers together take only 5% of the total staking rewards, with the remaining proceeds全部 retained in the trust accounts. This model creates a significant competitive advantage over rival products.
Bloomberg Intelligence analysts point out that, leveraging nearly 16,000 financial advisors and a combined $2.6 trillion in client assets under management, these two new products represent the most important new supply since the launch of Ethereum and Solana ETFs. By the end of 2025, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management’s total client assets are expected to reach $7.4 trillion, covering over 20 million clients. Through the full rollout of spot crypto asset trading on the ETRADE securities platform and partnerships with Galaxy Digital to allow eligible clients to swap assets, Morgan Stanley is utilizing its vast offline wealth management network to reach everyday investors, breaking through the bottleneck faced by competitors who are limited to crypto-native investors.
