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In brief Morgan Stanley has become the first major U.S. commercial bank to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF.
MSBT drew $30.6 million in inflows on its debut Wednesday, with spot Bitcoin ETFs posting net outflows for a second straight day.
At 0.14%, the fund charges the lowest expense ratio among Bitcoin ETFs.
Morgan Stanley became the first major U.S. commercial bank to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF on Wednesday, with its MSBT product posting inflows of $30.6 million in its first trading day according to data from Farside Investors.
Despite the newcomer’s first-day performance, Wednesday marked a second day of net outflows from spot Bitcoin ETFs, with the funds shedding $124.5 million. Nevertheless, the investment products remain in the black for the week, thanks to Monday’s $471 million one-day haul, their biggest since February.
MSBT’s 0.14% expense ratio makes it the cheapest Bitcoin ETF available, undercutting category leader BlackRock’s IBIT by 11 basis points. The launch intensifies competition with BlackRock’s IBIT, which holds $56 billion in assets while charging 0.25% annually; on Wednesday, IBIT drew in $40.4 million.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart suggested that the product “might be a loss leader,” arguing that “this is their way of, potentially trying to get some crypto millionaires—a lot of people with a lot of money—to join their wealth management product.”
In a tweet, Seyffart’s colleague Eric Balchunas called MSBT’s debut “arguably biggest btc launch since they began” and projected first-year assets under management of $5 billion.
Earlier this week, Balchunas told Decrypt earlier this week that Morgan Stanley’s offering is “not going to knock off BlackRock and become the biggest, but I believe it will do well,” adding that. “What Morgan Stanley has going for it is a captive audience. It’s got its own army of advisors.”
Bitcoin is currently trading at $71,260, down 0.6% on the day and up 6.6% on the week, per CoinGecko data. On prediction market Myriad, owed by Decrypt’s parent company Dastan, users are evenly split on the cryptocurrency’s prospects, putting an even chance on its next move taking it to $84,000 or $55,000.