Morgan Stanley Opens Crypto Trading for BTC, ETH and SOL

Key Takeaways E*TRADE has completed the rollout of spot trading for Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. Trades carry a flat 0.50% commission with no additional spread fee or markup from E*TRADE. Crypto is currently held in a separate Zero Hash account and cannot yet be transferred to an external wallet. Solana gains access to a large brokerage audience, but that does not immediately translate into activity on the Solana network. According to the official information from the company, clients do not need to fund a separate crypto balance manually. Cash in the linked brokerage account provides the buying power, with funds moving between the accounts when a trade settles. Morgan Stanley reported 8.7 million self-directed households as of June 30, 2026. That figure describes the service’s potential distribution network rather than the number of immediate crypto users. Clients must still qualify for and open a separate non-brokerage account provided by Zero Hash. The Distribution Is More Important Than the Asset List Bitcoin and Ethereum are increasingly standard additions to institutional crypto products. Solana’s inclusion is more notable because E*TRADE launched with only three supported assets, placing SOL beside the two largest cryptocurrencies rather than introducing it through a broader catalogue. The immediate advantage is reduced friction. An investor who already holds cash or securities at E*TRADE can add direct crypto exposure without opening and funding an account at a dedicated exchange. Crypto positions can also be viewed alongside the rest of the investor’s portfolio. That convenience could expand demand for all three assets, but the size of E*TRADE’s customer base should not be treated as expected trading volume. Morgan Stanley has not disclosed how many households have opened crypto accounts, how much volume the service has processed, or how activity is divided between BTC, ETH, and SOL. What the 0.50% Fee Costs Against Rivals According to E*TRADE’s official crypto pricing, every transaction carries a commission equal to 0.50% of its notional value. E*TRADE says there is no additional spread fee or markup. $100 trade: $0.50 commission $1,000 trade: $5 commission $10,000 trade: $50 commission The comparison with other platforms is less straightforward. Coinbase Advanced varies its maker and taker fees according to order type and 30-day trading volume, so some users may pay less than 0.50% and others more. Robinhood does not charge a separately stated commission under its default market-maker routing, but the execution spread still creates a cost. In Robinhood’s own example, a $100 purchase with a 0.96% buy spread carries $0.96 in spread cost. Applied to a $1,000 order, the same illustrative spread would equal $9.60, although the actual spread changes with the asset and market conditions. For an occasional investor, E*TRADE’s advantage is predictability: a $1,000 order costs $5 before any later sale.