Morgan Stanley’s E*Trade will launch cryptocurrency buying and selling in 2026 by way of a partnership with digital asset infrastructure supplier Zerohash — underscoring Wall Street’s deepening push into digital property amid a wave of supportive laws from the Trump administration.
E*Trade purchasers will have the ability to purchase Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH) and Solana (SOL) within the first half of 2026, a Morgan Stanley spokesperson instructed Reuters.
The announcement confirms a May 1 Bloomberg report that the brokerage deliberate so as to add crypto buying and selling subsequent 12 months. At the time, Cointelegraph reported that the initiative was nonetheless in early levels as E*Trade sought partnerships with infrastructure suppliers.
E*Trade was acquired by Morgan Stanley in 2020 for $13 billion. At the time of the deal, the low cost brokerage had greater than 5.2 million customers and supplied a retail-focused platform for buying and selling regulated monetary securities, centered primarily on US residents.
Zerohash shouldn’t be a family title in crypto, however Fortune reported Tuesday that it raised $104 million at a $1 billion valuation in a spherical led by Interactive Brokers. The firm gives crypto buying and selling, tokenization and stablecoin infrastructure for monetary establishments and different blockchain adopters. Morgan Stanley additionally participated within the funding spherical.
As Bloomberg famous, Zerohash will construct a full pockets answer for E*Trade purchasers.
Perhaps E*Trade’s greatest rival within the low cost brokerage crypto area is Robinhood, which has quickly expanded its footprint by providing crypto buying and selling and, extra not too long ago, buying alternate Bitstamp in a $200 million deal.
Related: Crypto Biz: Wall Street giants guess on stablecoins
Wall Street broadens blockchain push
While E*Trade’s crypto rollout represents one in every of Morgan Stanley’s first direct retail forays into digital property, the financial institution has already been deepening its presence within the area.
Since August 2024, Morgan Stanley has allowed its wealth advisers to actively pitch spot Bitcoin exchange-traded funds to eligible purchasers. Earlier this 12 months on the World Economic Forum in Davos, CEO Ted Pick stated the financial institution can be exploring the transactional facet of crypto.
Interestingly, Morgan Stanley was not among the many Wall Street corporations reported in May as weighing a joint stablecoin initiative. According to The Wall Street Journal, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo had been exploring the thought.
Nevertheless, a 2024 paper by Andrew Peel, Morgan Stanley’s head of digital asset markets, argued that stablecoins might reinforce the US greenback’s international dominance — a view that aligns with current regulatory efforts to determine clear stablecoin laws.
That perspective gained traction with the passage of the GENIUS Act, signed into legislation by US President Donald Trump, which established a complete framework for stablecoin issuers.
Related: Crypto execs heart stage as Trump indicators stablecoin invoice into legislation
