Morgan Stanley’s spot bitcoin ETF (MSBT) concluded its first month of operation without a single day of net outflows. This marks the best performance among competitors for the same period.
The fund was launched on April 8. On its first day, inflows reached $30.6 million with a trading volume of $34 million. Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas classified this debut among the top 1% of ETF launches in history. Meanwhile, the entire segment recorded a net outflow of $94 million on the launch day.
By mid-May, daily inflows into MSBT had decreased from tens to single millions of dollars, yet the figure never went negative. Other major players, such as BlackRock’s IBIT and Fidelity’s FBTC, occasionally faced outflows.
The primary factor for success is the 0.14% annual fee, the lowest in the U.S. market. For institutional investors, the 0.11% difference compared to IBIT translates to a saving of $1.1 million per billion invested.
In the first six days of trading, MSBT attracted $103 million—more than WisdomTree’s BTCW, which has been trading since January.
Amy Oldenburg, head of digital assets at Morgan Stanley, noted that nearly all capital was provided by retail clients. The bank has yet to fully open access to the instrument for its 16,000 financial advisors, who manage $9.3 trillion in assets.
Balchunas predicts that MSBT’s assets under management could reach $5 billion in its first year. To achieve this, the bank needs to engage its wealth management division’s advisors in sales.
Back in March, Morgan Stanley submitted an S-1 filing to the SEC for the launch of a spot bitcoin ETF.