While Morgan Stanley has already been making some moves in the crypto ecosystem for several years, the bank could accelerate its initiatives. What do we know about this?
Morgan Stanley studies possibilities to expand its crypto offering
Speaking to CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ted Pick, CEO of Morgan Stanley, indicated that the bank was considering the possibility of develop its activities in cryptocurrencies.
Under certain conditions, notably regulatory, the establishment could then offer digital assets directly to its customers:
For us, the equation is really whether we, as a highly regulated financial institution, can act as financial operators. […] We will work with the Treasury and other regulators to determine how we can deliver this safely.
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Until then, banks could not hold spot cryptocurrencies in the United States. Let us also remember the pressure put on banking establishments by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which Coinbase managed to highlight recently.
For his part, Morgan Stanley was therefore content to access cryptocurrencies through indirect meansfirst in 2021 by offering its clients the opportunity to invest in funds from Galaxy Digital and NYDIG in March 2021. The same year, the bank then gained exposure to Grayscale's GBTC, while more recently in August 2024, we learned that she held $185 million in Bitcoin ETF (BTC).
Furthermore, Ted Pick was also cautious regarding a possible lack of maturity of part of the ecosystem:
The broader question is whether some of these cryptocurrencies have reached maturity, whether they have reached cruising speed. You know, time is a friend; the longer they are exchanged, the more the perception becomes reality.
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With the change of government in the United States, we may well see an acceleration of crypto initiatives on the part of banking institutions. However, we see through these words that there are still reservations and that it might not be as quick as we think.
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Source: CNBC
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