In brief
- Morgan Stanley's amended S-1 names BNY Mellon and Coinbase Custody as custodians for its spot Bitcoin ETF.
- The SEC has not yet approved the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF for trading.
- The bank's digital assets head says Morgan Stanley plans to build in-house Bitcoin custody, trading, and lending capabilities.
Morgan Stanley intends to custody Bitcoin related to its proposed Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust with The Bank of New York Mellon and Coinbase Custody Trust Company, the firm said in an amended copy of its S-1 registration on Wednesday.
The setup is similar to that used by existing Bitcoin ETFs, like BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust. IBIT initially relied on Coinbase alone for its Bitcoin custody, but added Anchorage as a second custodian in April 2025. The BlackRock Bitcoin fund also uses BNY, but as its cash custodian and administrator.
The Wall Street giant first filed its S-1 registration for the spot Bitcoin ETF in January. It also filed to register Ethereum and Solana ETFs. At the time, the firm hadn't provided any details about who it intended to use as custodian for its Bitcoin fund.
The new Bitcoin ETF has not yet been approved for trading by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Morgan Stanley's suite of planned crypto ETFs are just one step towards a fuller embrace of cryptocurrency, according to Amy Oldenburg, the bank's recently appointed digital assets strategy head.
She said last week that the bank will "absolutely" offer Bitcoin custody, trading, yield, and lending services in time.
Oldenburg said the investment bank has looked at the market and decided that it needs to build its own in-house capabilities before rolling out Bitcoin offerings to its clients.
"We really need to build this out internally. We can't just primarily rent the technology to do this. People expect Morgan Stanley—they trust our brand—to be no-fail," she said while speaking to Strategy CEO Phong Le last week at a conference in Las Vegas. "When you sit in that position, you have a significant responsibility to your clients to make sure that you're delivering that in any level of technology."
When Le asked her how much the investment bank estimates its clients hold in cryptocurrency—and therefore, currently, off its banking platform—Oldenburg said it's "a considerable number." But she added that she doesn't necessarily expect the bank's clients to want to move all their BTC into their custody solutions.