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Morgan Stanley just dropped two new crypto products on NYSE Arca. The Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (MSSE) and the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (MSOL) are now live, and the firm’s pricing is aggressive — 0.14% expense ratio, the lowest in the market for either asset class.
Both trusts track CoinDesk benchmark rates. Specifically, the ether product follows the CoinDesk Ether Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate, and the solana product follows the CoinDesk Solana Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate. The idea is pretty straightforward: investors get exposure to ETH and SOL without actually holding the tokens, dealing with wallets, or figuring out private keys. Morgan Stanley handles all of that. And on top of the basic price exposure, both trusts will stake portions of their holdings and pass those rewards back to investors — which is a meaningful differentiator in a space where most competitors just track price.
Bitcoin Trust Already at $381 Million
These launches don’t come out of nowhere. Morgan Stanley already runs the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), which has pulled in over $381 million in assets since it started trading. That’s a real number, and it gave the firm confidence to move further along the crypto curve. Ether was the obvious next step. Solana is the bet that comes after that.
The U.S. crypto ETP market has been moving fast since spot bitcoin ETFs got the green light in January 2024. Firms piled in almost immediately. Ether products followed. Now solana is the competitive frontier, and the numbers there are already substantial — SoSoValue shows eight solana ETFs with a combined $889.3 million in net assets. Morgan Stanley is walking into a market that’s crowded but clearly growing.
BlackRock has also been active, rolling out crypto income ETFs as client demand for yield-generating digital asset products keeps climbing. The whole sector is basically racing to figure out what institutional investors want next, and staking rewards seem to be part of that answer.
Distribution Is the Real Weapon Here
Here’s what makes Morgan Stanley’s position different from a lot of competitors. It’s not just the fee. The firm runs one of the largest wealth management operations in the country, and it owns E*TRADE. That combination gives MSSE and MSOL a distribution network that most crypto-native fund shops can’t touch. Financial advisors at Morgan Stanley can put these products in front of clients who have never touched a crypto exchange and probably never will. E*TRADE puts them in front of retail investors who want simple, brokerage-account-friendly access.
That’s a big deal. A lot of the early crypto ETP launches struggled with distribution — great product, thin reach. Morgan Stanley doesn’t have that problem.
The staking component is worth dwelling on a bit more. Staking, for ether and solana specifically, means the underlying assets are put to work validating transactions on their respective networks. The rewards generated get passed to investors in the trust. It’s basically a yield layer on top of price exposure, and it’s something that plain spot ETFs without staking can’t offer. Morgan Stanley is betting that income-oriented investors — the same ones who like dividend stocks or bond ladders — will find that attractive.
No details came out about what the staking yields look like in practice, or how frequently rewards get distributed. Unclear whether that gets disclosed in the prospectus or somewhere else. The firm also didn’t comment on what products might come next after ether and solana.
Where Solana Fits in the Race
Solana is interesting because it’s not as established as ether in the ETP world, but it’s moving quickly. The $889.3 million in combined solana ETF assets across eight products shows real money is already flowing. Morgan Stanley’s entry at the lowest fee in the market could pull flows away from higher-cost competitors, especially given the distribution advantage.
Ether, by contrast, is pretty much a settled category at this point. The competition there is fierce on fees and on staking mechanics. Morgan Stanley’s 0.14% rate puts it at or near the bottom of the cost table, which matters for fee-sensitive institutional allocators.
The firm’s wealth management arm also means these products won’t just sit in institutional portfolios. They’re likely to show up in managed accounts, advisory models, and retirement-adjacent portfolios where traditional ETF wrappers are standard. That’s a different investor base than the crypto-native crowd, and it’s probably a bigger one.
No comments were provided on future product plans. The MSSE and MSOL are trading on NYSE Arca now, with that 0.14% expense ratio.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust and Solana Trust?
They are exchange-traded products — tickers MSSE and MSOL — listed on NYSE Arca that track CoinDesk benchmark rates for ether and solana, letting investors gain crypto exposure without holding the tokens directly.
What expense ratio do the new Morgan Stanley crypto trusts charge?
Both the ether and solana trusts charge a 0.14% expense ratio, which Morgan Stanley has positioned as the lowest in the market for these asset classes.
