Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust Nets $194M, No Daily Outflows

Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin Trust drew $194 million in net inflows in its first month after launching April 8 and did not record a single day of net redemptions during that period.

The fund opened with $30.6 million in net inflows and about $34 million in trading volume on its first day. Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley’s head of digital assets, described the launch as the bank’s strongest-ever ETF debut. An ETF analyst ranked the debut among the top 1% of ETF launches.

Daily inflows slowed from high‑teens millions in the opening sessions to single‑digit millions later, but remained positive each day, according to SoSoValue data. Within six trading days the trust had more than $103 million in cumulative net inflows, surpassing an older competing fund’s $86 million all‑time cumulative total.

The broader group of U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs showed larger swings over the same window, including a $663.9 million inflow day on April 17 and consecutive outflow days of $277.5 million and $145.7 million on May 7 and May 8. On May 7 the Morgan Stanley trust posted $5.7 million in inflows while several larger funds recorded outflows.

The trust traded at about a 0.24% premium to net asset value during the period, compared with 0.18% at IBIT and 0.13% at FBTC.

Morgan Stanley priced the fund with a 0.14% annual sponsor fee, the lowest among U.S. spot bitcoin ETFs. Other issuers charge 0.15%, 0.20%, 0.21% and 0.25%; the older Grayscale Bitcoin Trust continues to charge 1.50%. An 11‑basis‑point fee gap with a major competitor equals roughly $1.1 million in annual fees per $1 billion invested.

Almost all of the trust’s initial inflows came from self‑directed clients. The fund was not available on Morgan Stanley’s advisory wealth management platform during its first weeks. Morgan Stanley operates roughly 16,000 financial advisors managing about $9.3 trillion in client assets. The bank is piloting spot crypto trading on its retail platform with a 50‑basis‑point transaction fee, starting with bitcoin, ether and solana.

Across the U.S. spot bitcoin ETF category, 13 funds drew more than $3 billion in net inflows over six consecutive weeks through May 8. Total net assets in the category stood near $106.6 billion, about 6.67% of bitcoin’s market capitalization, and cumulative net inflows since January 2024 were roughly $59.3 billion. One ETF analyst projected the Morgan Stanley trust could reach $5 billion in assets under management within its first year.

Bitcoin traded around $80,840 at the time of publication.