Morgan Stanley Targets Direct Crypto Custody With Trust Bank Application
Morgan Stanley has utilized for a nationwide belief financial institution constitution to supply direct cryptocurrency custody for its institutional purchasers. This represents a serious escalation in Wall Street’s push into the digital asset sector.
The $9 trillion banking large filed the de novo software with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on February 18.
Morgan Stanley’s New OCC Bid to Rival BitGo and Anchorage
If authorized, the constitution would rework Morgan Stanley right into a direct competitor to crypto-native custodians such as BitGo and Anchorage Digital, whereas testing the bounds of conventional banking laws.
The filing marks a major shift within the aggressive panorama. While the OCC has beforehand granted conditional trust charters to crypto-focused firms, a legacy wirehouse securing full approval would sign a serious thaw in regulatory oversight.
Industry analysts attribute this renewed momentum to the Trump administration’s efforts to supply clearer federal pointers for conventional monetary establishments coming into the digital asset house.
“People are going to be surprised this 12 months — The world’s largest establishments and corporates are coming absolutely into crypto,” Hunter Horsley, Bitwise CEO, said.
Meanwhile, Morgan Stanley’s software outlines bold plans to supply custody, buying and selling, and staking providers beneath one roof.
So, the OCC submitting is a part of a bifurcated digital asset strategy that distinctly separates institutional wealth administration from retail buying and selling operations.
On the institutional facet, the financial institution is actively investing in blockchain infrastructure. A current job posting for a lead engineer revealed Morgan Stanley is building a platform for decentralized finance and real-world asset tokenization.
The function requires experience in each public blockchains, resembling Ethereum and Polygon, and personal, permissioned networks like Hyperledger and Canton.
This highlights the financial institution’s intent to bridge walled-garden institutional belongings with public community liquidity.
Simultaneously, Morgan Stanley is making ready an enormous retail growth.
The agency plans to launch direct cryptocurrency buying and selling on its ETrade platform within the first half of 2026, providing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana to on a regular basis traders.
The ETrade integration represents a direct problem to retail-focused exchanges like Coinbase and Robinhood.
Indeed, this twin strategy underscores a broader pattern amongst conventional monetary titans.
Encouraged by a extra accommodating regulatory atmosphere in Washington, legacy banks are rapidly accelerating their crypto roadmaps. They are actually hiring specialised Web3 expertise and transitioning from passive exchange-traded fund facilitation to core infrastructure development.
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