Morgan Stanley launches spot Ethereum and Solana trust ETFs

Morgan Stanley on July 28 listed two spot crypto trusts on NYSE Arca: the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (MSSE) and the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (MSOL). Each trust offers direct exposure to the underlying token and charges a 14-basis-point fee.

Both funds hold physical tokens and use 4PM NY Settlement Rate benchmarks that aggregate trade volume across major spot exchanges at 4:00 p.m. ET to align share prices with spot market values. Each trust will delegate part of its token holdings to network validators to earn staking rewards. About 95% of staking rewards will be returned to shareholders; the trusts will retain roughly 5% to cover validator fees.

MSSE intends to stake between 50% and 80% of its ether, targeting a base network reward near 1.7% based on current network data. MSOL plans to stake 100% of its solana, with a network reward around 3.4% based on current data. Staking income will be distributed to shareholders periodically, reflecting the percentage of rewards the trusts capture.

Tokens will be held with institutional crypto custodians and the trusts will use established settlement benchmarks for pricing. Morgan Stanley expects to distribute the products through its wealth-advisor network and retail platforms, including its brokerage channel. The firm has about 16,000 wealth advisors managing more than $9 trillion in client assets and owns the brokerage E*TRADE.

The launch follows Morgan Stanley’s Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, which has added roughly $430.86 million in assets since its April inception. In a statement, Amy Oldenburg, head of digital asset strategy at Morgan Stanley, noted growing client interest in digital assets and said the firm aims to provide digital asset solutions that align with its governance, infrastructure and risk-management standards.