Morgan Stanley to open up crypto investing to all its clients - report

[Morgan Stanley European Headquarters, London, UK]
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Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MS]) informed its network of financial advisors that crypto investments will be available to all clients in any type of account, including retirement accounts.

As of Oct. 15, advisors will be able to offer crypto funds to any client, a person familiar with the matter told Seeking Alpha.

Previously, investing in the asset class was only open to clients with an aggressive risk tolerance and at least $1.5M in assets, and only allowed the investment in a taxable brokerage account. CNBC reported on the development earlier on Friday, citing people familiar.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MS]), parent of the E*Trade online brokerage, has built up its wealth and investment management operations in recent years, bringing the unit's client assets to $8.2T.

The bank's global investment committee's recommendation in a recently issued model is a maximum initial allocation to crypto of up to 4%, depending on the investor's goals.

The company will use an automated monitoring process to ensure that clients aren't overly concentrated in the risky asset class, the people said.

Late last month, Bloomberg News reported that Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MS]) was partnering with Zerohash [https://seekingalpha.com/news/4497841-morgan-stanley-teams-up-with-zerohash-to-offer-crypto-to-e-trade-users-report], a stablecoin infrastructure platform, to allow E*Trade users to trade in popular crypto tokens starting in H1 2026.

Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/MS]) stock rose 0.4% in Friday morning trading. In crypto-trading related stocks, Coinbase Global (COIN [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/COIN]) fell 0.3%, Robinhood Markets (HOOD [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/HOOD]) slid 1.6%, Bullish (BLSH [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/BLSH]) sank 3.8%, and eToro Group (ETOR [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/ETOR]) rose 0.3%.

In Friday trading, bitcoin (BTC-USD [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/BTC-USD]) slipped 0.3% in the past 24 hours to $121.3K, and ether (ETH-USD [https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/ETH-USD]) rose 0.2% to ~$4.33K.

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