Morgan Stanley has utilized for a nationwide belief financial institution constitution to supply direct cryptocurrency custody for its institutional shoppers. This represents a significant escalation in Wall Road’s push into the digital asset sector.
The $9 trillion banking big filed the de novo utility with the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money on February 18.
Morgan Stanley’s New OCC Bid to Rival BitGo and Anchorage
If accepted, the constitution would remodel Morgan Stanley right into a direct competitor to crypto-native custodians reminiscent of BitGo and Anchorage Digital, whereas testing the boundaries of conventional banking laws.
The submitting marks a big shift within the aggressive panorama. Whereas the OCC has beforehand granted conditional belief charters to crypto-focused companies, a legacy wirehouse securing full approval would sign a significant thaw in regulatory oversight.
Trade analysts attribute this renewed momentum to the Trump administration’s efforts to supply clearer federal pointers for conventional monetary establishments getting into the digital asset area.
“People are going to be stunned this year — The world’s largest institutions and corporates are coming fully into crypto,” Hunter Horsley, Bitwise CEO, stated.
In the meantime, Morgan Stanley’s utility outlines formidable plans to supply custody, buying and selling, and staking companies underneath one roof.
So, the OCC submitting is a part of a bifurcated digital asset technique that distinctly separates institutional wealth administration from retail buying and selling operations.
On the institutional aspect, the financial institution is actively investing in blockchain infrastructure. A latest job posting for a lead engineer revealed Morgan Stanley is constructing a platform for decentralized finance and real-world asset tokenization.
The function requires experience in each public blockchains, reminiscent of Ethereum and Polygon, and personal, permissioned networks like Hyperledger and Canton.
This highlights the financial institution’s intent to bridge walled-garden institutional belongings with public community liquidity.
Concurrently, Morgan Stanley is making ready an enormous retail enlargement.
The agency plans to launch direct cryptocurrency buying and selling on its ETrade platform within the first half of 2026, providing Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana to on a regular basis traders.
The ETrade integration represents a direct problem to retail-focused exchanges like Coinbase and Robinhood.
Certainly, this twin strategy underscores a broader development amongst conventional monetary titans.
Inspired by a extra accommodating regulatory atmosphere in Washington, legacy banks are quickly accelerating their crypto roadmaps. They’re now hiring specialised Web3 expertise and transitioning from passive exchange-traded fund facilitation to core infrastructure improvement.
