Morgan Stanley is rolling out cryptocurrency trading on ETrade, taking its crypto strategy from ETF access into direct spot trading for retail brokerage clients. The E*Trade pilot rollout charges 50 basis points on the dollar value of each crypto transaction and is expected to reach ETrade’s 8.6 million clients later this year.
Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana are the first assets in scope. That lineup keeps the launch focused on the three most institutionally recognizable crypto trades: Bitcoin as the market’s reserve asset, Ethereum as the dominant smart-contract settlement layer, and Solana as the high-throughput chain that has become central to retail speculation and onchain trading.
The move follows Morgan Stanley’s earlier Zerohash tie-up, which set up the infrastructure path for E*Trade clients to trade BTC, ETH and SOL. The timing is strong for the launch. Bitcoin traded near $81,700 at the latest market check, Ethereum was near $2,360, and Solana held close to $89 after leading large-cap altcoin momentum.
The 0.50% transaction fee is the sharpest part of the rollout. It places Morgan Stanley below many mainstream crypto trading options and turns E*Trade into a direct pricing competitor for Coinbase, Robinhood and Charles Schwab. For users who already hold stocks, ETFs, options and retirement assets inside a brokerage account, adding crypto inside the same interface reduces the need to open a separate exchange account.
That creates a different kind of competition for crypto-native platforms. Coinbase still has deeper crypto infrastructure, staking products, wallet connections, stablecoin distribution, custody, and institutional execution. Morgan Stanley has distribution, trust, existing retail brokerage relationships, and a fee structure designed to win price-sensitive traders.
The pressure arrives while Coinbase is already facing questions around its revenue mix. Its USDC revenue engine is under more policy scrutiny as stablecoin-yield rules move through Washington, while low-fee onchain markets continue to pull trading attention away from centralized order books.
Morgan Stanley has been building toward this point for months. Its Bitcoin ETF strategy already placed the bank deeper inside the institutional side of the market, with earlier expectations that its Bitcoin ETF could become a major distribution product. E*Trade adds the retail side: direct trading in the same app where users already manage traditional assets.
The Solana listing choice also shows where brokerage crypto demand is moving. Solana has become one of the most active chains by transactions and DEX volume, with recent Solana market data showing how deeply retail trading, low fees and onchain liquidity have shaped its role in the current cycle.
Morgan Stanley’s crypto launch gives Wall Street a cleaner route into spot trading without forcing clients into crypto-native exchanges. The competitive stakes are concrete: 8.6 million E*Trade clients, a 0.50% transaction fee, and initial access to BTC, ETH and SOL inside a traditional brokerage interface. If that rollout scales smoothly, the next fight in retail crypto will be less about whether major banks enter the market and more about how much fee compression Coinbase, Robinhood and Schwab can absorb while keeping users active.
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