Morgan Stanley on Friday told its army of financial advisors that it will soon allow them to offer bitcoin ETFs to some clients, a first among major Wall Street banks, CNBC has learned.
Those funds are BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust and Fidelity's Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund, the people said.
The move from Morgan Stanley, one of the world's largest wealth management firms, is the latest sign of the adoption of bitcoin by mainstream finance. In January, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved applications for 11 spot bitcoin ETFs, heralding the arrival of an investment vehicle for bitcoin that is easier to access, cheaper to own and more readily traded.
Bitcoin has weathered market sell-offs, the spectacular collapse of crypto exchange FTX and criticism from the most established figures in finance including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett.
So it's not surprising that Wall Street's major wealth management businesses didn't immediately embrace the new ETFs, forbidding their financial advisors from pitching them and only allowing trades if clients actively sought out the product.
