Morgan Stanley Ethereum Solana ETPs add staking rewards
Morgan Stanley launched Ethereum and Solana ETPs with 0.14% fees and staking rewards, widening its crypto lineup beyond Bitcoin.
By Sofia Marchetti · Columnist
· 3 min read
Morgan Stanley Ethereum Solana ETPs are now part of the firm’s digital-asset lineup, giving investors a stock-exchange route to price exposure in two major crypto networks. The new products matter because they package crypto access inside a familiar market wrapper, while also adding staking rewards that could affect investor returns.
Morgan Stanley Investment Management said Tuesday it launched the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust and Morgan Stanley Solana Trust on NYSE Arca. The Ethereum product trades under the ticker MSSE, while the Solana product trades under MSOL, according to the firm’s announcement.
Each product is designed to follow the price of its underlying token, Ethereum or Solana. Morgan Stanley said both will carry a 0.14% expense ratio, stake part of their crypto holdings and distribute any staking rewards to investors.
What are Morgan Stanley Ethereum Solana ETPs?
An exchange-traded product, or ETP, is a fund-like security that trades on an exchange and gives investors exposure to an asset without requiring them to hold it directly. In this case, Morgan Stanley says MSSE and MSOL are meant to track Ethereum and Solana, respectively, through products listed on NYSE Arca.
Staking is the process of locking up tokens to help run certain blockchain networks and earn rewards from the network. Morgan Stanley said the trusts will stake only a portion of their holdings, with any rewards passed on to investors.
The launches extend Morgan Stanley’s push beyond Bitcoin. The firm introduced a spot Bitcoin Trust in April, and Morgan Stanley said that product had gathered more than $381 million in assets under management as of July 16.
Morgan Stanley also said its ETF and ETP platform had grown to more than $14 billion in assets under management across 22 products. Ally Wallace, global head of ETFs for Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said in the company’s statement that the firm began offering ETFs in 2023 and now runs a broader lineup of ETF and ETP products.
How does this fit into Morgan Stanley’s crypto plans?
The Ethereum and Solana products arrive after several crypto-related moves from Morgan Stanley this year. In April, executives said the firm was looking at tokenized money market funds, digital-asset tax-management strategies through its Parametric subsidiary and other blockchain-based products.
Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley’s head of digital-asset strategy, previously told Decrypt that the firm was not planning to stop at Bitcoin and described the work as part of a longer-term effort.
In July, Morgan Stanley made spot Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana trading available to eligible E*TRADE customers through a partnership with Zero Hash, according to Decrypt. That rollout allowed those customers to buy, sell and hold digital assets alongside stocks and other investments.
For retail investors, the bigger theme is access. Morgan Stanley is adding crypto products that sit closer to traditional brokerage and exchange infrastructure, while still tying investor outcomes to volatile digital assets and, in these new products, to staking rewards that depend on the underlying networks.
This story draws on original reporting from Decrypt.
