Arkham Intelligence has identified the on-chain wallets behind Morgan Stanley's new spot Bitcoin (BTC) ETF. Now, the amount of BTC the bank holds can be publicly tracked in near real-time.
Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) began trading on NYSE Arca on April 8, 2024. It is the first spot Bitcoin ETF issued by a major US bank.
Arkham helps to make the amount of BTC held by MSBT public.
Arkham 's blockchain analytics team accurately identified the custodial wallets used by MSBT before proceeding with verification. Users can now track BTC deposits and withdrawals as they are recorded on the blockchain.
However, traditional financial markets still operate on a T+1 settlement cycle, meaning that transactions confirmed on the blockchain appear one day after the allocation decision is made. Therefore, wallet data only reflects yesterday's activities, not today's.
Since its launch, MSBT has purchased approximately $102.79 million worth of BTC . There are currently about 1,348 BTC held on-chain by the fund.
The amount of Bitcoin held by Morgan Stanley (MSBT). Source: ArkhamEric Balchunas, an ETF analyst at Bloomberg, rated this launch as being in the top 1% of ETFs with the most impressive debuts of the past year.
Low fees compete with BlackRock's leading position.
MSBT charges an annual management fee of only 0.14%, the lowest among spot Bitcoin ETFs in the US . BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) leads the market with a fee of 0.25% and currently manages approximately $57 billion in assets.
Morgan Stanley's asset management division has approximately 16,000 advisors managing a total of $9.3 trillion in client assets. Even a small fraction of client funds shifting to MSBT could generate a significant influx of Capital in the near future.
Coinbase and BNY Mellon are the two digital asset custodians for this fund. Goldman Sachs and Charles Schwab are also reportedly preparing to launch competing crypto products , suggesting that pressure to reduce management fees in the market may continue to increase.
