Arkham has identified the on-chain wallets behind Morgan Stanley's newly launched spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF, giving the public a live view of its holdings.
Arkham Flags MSBT Wallets
The Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, ticker MSBT, began trading on NYSE Arca on Apr. 8.
Arkham's research team said its analysts verified the addresses as a Morgan Stanley entity with a high degree of accuracy. The platform is currently the only public venue tracking MSBT holdings on-chain.
Because ETFs settle on a T+1 basis, wallet activity lags the issuer's public inflow and outflow announcements by a day. Coinbase and BNY Mellon act as digital asset custodians, per the product listing on Morgan Stanley's site.
On its first trading day, MSBT recorded about $34 million in volume. After five sessions, net assets reached $87 million.
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Fees, Scale And The ETF Race
Morgan Stanley is undercutting rivals on cost. MSBT charges 0.14%, below the 0.25% fee on BlackRock's IBIT, which currently holds roughly $57 billion in assets under management.
Distribution reach is the swing factor cited by Arkham.
Morgan Stanley runs one of the largest advisor networks on Wall Street, with roughly 16,000 advisors overseeing $9.3 trillion in client assets. A 1% allocation across that base would lift MSBT net assets toward $93 billion, according to Arkham's research note.
The launch extends a fast-moving year for spot Bitcoin ETFs. BlackRock, Fidelity and other issuers opened the market in early 2024, and fresh entrants have steadily trimmed fees to compete for flows as institutional demand builds.
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