Morgan Stanley Bitcoin ETF Draws In $31M on First Trading Day

Morgan Stanley on Wednesday became the first major US commercial bank to launch a spot Bitcoin ETF, with its MSBT product recording $30.6 million in inflows on its first day of trading, 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 losing $124.5 million. Still, investment products remain negative this week, thanks to Monday’s one-day return of $471 million, the largest since February.

MSBTs Expense ratio of 0.14% makes it the cheapest Bitcoin ETF available and undercuts category leader BlackRock’s IBIT by 11 basis points. The launch intensifies competition with BlackRock’s IBIT, which is holding its ground $56 billion in assets while 0.25% is charged annually; On Wednesday, IBIT raised $40.4 million.

Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Seyffart suggested that the product “could be a loss leader,” arguing that “this is their way of potentially getting a bunch of crypto millionaires – a lot of people with a lot of money – to join their asset management product.”

In one tweetSeyffart’s colleague Eric Balchunas called MSBT’s debut “arguably the biggest BTC launch since inception” and predicted $5 billion in assets under management for the first year.

Earlier this week, Balchunas said Declutter earlier this week that Morgan Stanley’s offering “will not beat BlackRock and become the largest, but I believe it will do well,” he added. “What Morgan Stanley has in mind is a captive audience. It has 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, according to CoinGecko data. In the prediction market Myriadowed by DeclutterAt parent company Dastan, users are evenly divided about the cryptocurrency’s prospects, giving it an equal chance The next move takes it to $84,000 or $55,000.