In brief
- Morgan Stanley plans to build proprietary Bitcoin custody and trading services for clients.
- Yield and lending services are also under exploration as part of the crypto roadmap.
- The bank recently filed to launch Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana funds.
Wall Street giant Morgan Stanley, which oversees nearly $9 trillion worth of assets on behalf of its clients, wants them to be able to custody and trade Bitcoin on its platform, according to Amy Oldenburg, its recently appointed digital assets strategy head.
When asked if the bank is interested in offering Bitcoin-based yield and lending services, as well, she was very supportive.
“Of course,” she told Strategy CEO Phong Le at the company’s Bitcoin for Corporations conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday. “Absolutely. That’s part of the discussion and exploration. It’s a natural part of the roadmap to continue to explore. I think we’re very early in the journey on that.”
She 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,” Oldenburg said. “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 Strategy CEO Phong 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.
“There’s always those that are going to want to self-custody,” she told Le. “That’s a natural part of the space, especially in the Bitcoin space.”
Decrypt reached out to Morgan Stanley to inquire about about the Bitcoin roadmap and when the services might be available to clients, but did not immediately receive a response.
Before she became the bank’s head of digital assets strategy earlier this month, Oldenburg led the emerging market investing business and has been at the firm for 26 years.
There have been murmurs about the investment bank making moves to offer a suite of crypto products to its clients for months. Last September, the firm confirmed that it will offer Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana trading via its E*Trade app early this year. And in October, CNBC reported that the bank told its financial advisors that it intended to broaden its crypto offerings to customers.
Last month, Morgan Stanley filed an S-1 registration with the SEC to add an Ethereum ETF to its planned crypto fund lineup, one day after filing registrations for Bitcoin and Solana funds.
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