Morgan Stanley Plans Bitcoin and Crypto Trading for E*Trade Clients
Morgan Stanley moved toward allowing E*Trade customers to trade Bitcoin and other digital assets, marking another large U.S. financial institution’s shift toward direct retail crypto access.
On May 1, 2025, reporting emerged that Morgan Stanley was preparing to add cryptocurrency trading to its E*Trade brokerage platform. The planned service would give retail brokerage customers direct access to assets including Bitcoin through a mainstream financial institution rather than requiring them to open a separate account at a crypto-native exchange.
The significance was institutional rather than technical. Morgan Stanley had already participated in the Bitcoin market through wealth-management products and exposure to regulated funds, but direct trading through E*Trade would bring Bitcoin closer to the ordinary brokerage experience used for stocks and ETFs. It reflected the steady erosion of the separation between traditional securities platforms and digital-asset markets.
The May announcement was a plan rather than a completed launch, and that distinction is important. Its historical value lies in a major U.S. bank-owned brokerage publicly moving toward direct Bitcoin access for retail customers at a time when banks, brokerages, custodians, and regulators were rapidly reassessing how digital assets fit inside conventional financial infrastructure.