Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust Posts $193M, No First-Month Outflows

Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust completed its first month of trading with no net outflows, bringing in $193 million and raising assets to more than $240 million since the ETF began trading on April 8. The trust recorded inflows on 17 trading days, five flat days and zero redemptions in its opening month.

The fund opened with $30.6 million in deposits and about $34 million in trading volume on its first day. Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley’s head of digital asset strategy, described early activity as largely self-directed and said the firm’s advisors were not selling the ETF during the initial weeks.

Analysts placed the debut in the top percentile of ETF launches. The streak coincided with a period when Bitcoin traded between the mid-$70,000s and low-$80,000s, while several larger U.S. spot Bitcoin funds registered net outflows over the same period.

Market trading data show the trust gathered more than $103 million within its first six trading days. In the two most recent trading sessions, MSBT raised about $13 million while some competitors faced combined outflows of roughly $422 million. On May 7 the trust attracted $5.7 million while other large spot funds experienced multi-million-dollar redemptions: one lost nearly $100 million, another about $27 million, and a third roughly $26.6 million.

Morgan Stanley priced the trust with a 0.14% sponsor fee. That fee is lower than several rivals: Bitwise’s 0.20%, ARK Invest’s 0.21% and the 0.25% charged by some other major spot funds. An 11-basis-point difference versus a 0.25% fee translates to about $1.1 million in annual savings for every $1 billion invested.

The trust traded at roughly a 0.24% premium to net asset value at times during the month, reflecting higher buy pressure relative to some peers. MSBT holds close to 2,620 Bitcoin, placing it among the larger institutional Bitcoin holders but smaller than several flagship spot funds. Morgan Stanley reported that nearly all first-month inflows came from self-directed clients and that the ETF was not yet part of the firm’s advisory wealth management offering at launch.

Since the first U.S. spot Bitcoin ETFs began trading in January 2024, the category has attracted substantial capital. Market figures show U.S. spot Bitcoin funds have collected about $59.3 billion in net inflows and hold around $106.6 billion in assets to date.