Morgan Stanley Drops SOL and ETH ETFs With 0.14% Fees Because the Bank Giveth, and the Bank Also Staketh 📊

Morgan Stanley Investment Management has launched the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (NYSE Arca: MSSE) and the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (NYSE Arca: MSOL), expanding the Wall Street firm's digital asset lineup beyond bitcoin. The new exchange-traded products will trade on NYSE Arca and track $ETH and $SOL respectively, using the CoinDesk Ether Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate and CoinDesk Solana Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate.

Both funds carry a 0.14% expense ratio, described by the firm as the lowest on the market. Each intends to stake a portion of its holdings, with staking rewards passed through to investors rather than retained by Morgan Stanley. The launches follow the firm's April introduction of the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (NYSE Arca: MSBT), which had accumulated more than $381 million in assets under management as of July 16.

The new ETPs mark the first ether and solana products issued by a U.S. bank-affiliated asset manager, according to the company's announcement. Distribution will leverage Morgan Stanley's roughly 16,000 financial advisors and its E*TRADE platform, which earlier this month began offering eligible clients the ability to buy, sell and hold Bitcoin, Ether and Solana through a partnership with Zero Hash. Morgan Stanley's broader ETF and ETP platform had grown to more than $14 billion across 22 products as of July 16.

Industry data shows eight solana exchange-traded funds are already listed, with combined net assets of $889.3 million, according to SoSoValue. Spot bitcoin ETFs began trading in the United States in January 2024, with ether products now well established and solana emerging as the next area of competition among major issuers.

"Digital assets are becoming an increasingly important component of diversified investment portfolios," Amy Oldenburg, head of digital asset strategy at Morgan Stanley, said in a press release. "As client interest in digital assets continues to grow, we're focused on providing a range of digital asset solutions that allow investors to diversify their portfolios across traditional and decentralized asset classes while also adhering to Morgan Stanley's standards for governance, infrastructure and risk management." Global Head of ETFs Ally Wallace added that "the addition of MSSE and MSOL reflects the natural evolution of our product suite, which seeks to provide simplified access to digital assets through the ETP wrapper."