Morgan Stanley advisers can officially pitch Bitcoin ETFs

Morgan Stanely, the largest wealth manager in the United States, authorized its 15,000 financial advisers to start recommending Bitcoin (BTC) exchange-traded funds (ETFs) to clients on Aug. 7, a person familiar with the matter told Cointelegraph. 

The person, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, confirmed an earlier CNBC report, which said the financial advisory planned to start recommending BTC ETFs on Aug. 7. For now, Morgan Stanley is only recommending two products: BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Fidelity’s Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC).

Winning over Morgan Stanley is a milestone for crypto. Among wirehouses, Morgan Stanley is the largest. Its advisory network manages some $3.75 trillion, including $1 trillion in self-directed client accounts, according to financialplanning.com.

BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC are emerging as blue chips among BTC ETFs. They are seeing adoption not only among wirehouses like Morgan Stanley but also among independent financial advisers, Roxanna Islam, head of sector and industry research at VettaFi — a fund researcher — told Cointelegraph.

“Since the launch of these spot crypto ETPs, demand has been strong across all client segments, which is exciting to see the potential this asset class brings amongst retail investors, RIAs, institutional investors and beyond,” Matt Horne, head of digital asset strategists at Fidelity Investments, told Cointelegraph.

Continued uptake by leading advisory platforms could spur a surge of inflows from advisers into spot BTC ETFs, Matthew Sigel, VanEck’s head of digital assets research, told Cointelegraph.

Until now, the largest financial advisory firms, known as wirehouses, have been hesitant to embrace spot crypto ETFs. Inflows from financial advisers were previously limited to independent shops, known as registered investment advisors (RIA).

“The RIA community tends to be early on the investment adoption curve — they were early adopters of the ETF vehicle — and that adoption continued with the recent spot crypto ETPs,” Horne said.