Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin ETF Set to Launch on April 8: Bloomberg

Morgan Stanley’s much-anticipated spot Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded fund is expected to begin trading on Wednesday, April 8, on NYSE Arca. Bloomberg senior ETF analyst Eric Balchunas confirmed the launch date in an X post today, citing the NYSE’s listing notice.

Bloomberg’s Isabelle Lee had signaled during a Monday broadcast that the launch was imminent, stating it would be “probably this week.“

The fund will enter the market as the lowest-cost spot Bitcoin ETF in the U.S. Per Morgan Stanley’s most recent S-1 amendment filed with the SEC, the annual expense ratio is just 0.14%, undercutting Grayscale’s Bitcoin Mini Trust, which is currently the lowest-fee option at 0.15%, and sitting well below BlackRock’s IBIT, which charges 0.25%.

Bloomberg’s Balchunas called the pricing a “semi-shock,” noting that the lower fee means none of Morgan Stanley’s roughly 16,000 financial advisors “will feel conflicted using it and they have shot at getting outside assets. Smart.”

The Defiant first covered Morgan Stanley’s filing for the ETF back in January, when the Wall Street giant — which manages nearly $9 trillion in assets — filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to launch both a spot Bitcoin and spot Solana ETF. At the time, Timot Lamarre of Bitcoin custody firm Unchained told The Defiant the launch would add to Bitcoin’s legitimacy and intensify fee competition among issuers.

The launch comes at a moment of renewed momentum for Bitcoin ETFs broadly. Spot Bitcoin ETFs had a weaker start to 2026, but yesterday, April 6, marked the largest net inflow day for U.S. spot BTC ETFs since February, with $471.32 million in net inflows, per SoSoValue.

BlackRock’s IBIT remains the dominant player by a wide margin, with over $63 billion in cumulative net inflows per SoSoValue, whereas cumulative net inflows across all Bitcoin ETFs currently sits at $56.43 billion.

Since the launch of spot Bitcoin ETFs in the U.S. in early 2024, an historical moment for the crypto industry, multiple major TradFi players have moved to launch their own products.

Morgan Stanley’s MSBT will be the first BTC ETF from a U.S. investment bank, but it will trade alongside funds from major asset managers, namely BlackRock, Fidelity, VanEck, Franklin Templeton, and others.

Spot BTC is currently trading around $68,600, down 13% on the year, and over 45% below its all-time high around $126,000, which was s4t in October of last year.

This article was written with the assistance of AI workflows. All our stories are curated, edited and fact-checked by a human.