Morgan Stanley Investment Management has launched a spot Solana exchange-traded product on NYSE Arca, bringing SOL exposure and onchain staking rewards into one of Wall Street’s largest investment platforms.
The Morgan Stanley Solana Trust began trading Tuesday under the ticker MSOL. The product holds SOL directly and seeks to track the asset’s market performance through the CoinDesk Solana Benchmark 4PM NY Settlement Rate, minus the trust’s expenses and other liabilities.
MSOL carries an annual expense ratio of 0.14%, placing it among the lowest-cost Solana investment products available in the United States.
Bart Hillerich
Morgan Stanley launched the product alongside the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust, or MSSE, which carries the same fee and also incorporates staking. The launch gives investors access to SOL through standard brokerage accounts without requiring them to purchase tokens directly, manage private keys, or operate their own staking infrastructure.
MSOL Launches With Staking Built In
Unlike a basic spot crypto product that only follows the price of its underlying asset, MSOL intends to stake a portion of the SOL held by the trust and reflect the resulting rewards in the value of the product.
Figment has been selected as a staking provider for both MSOL and MSSE. The company said the Solana trust may stake up to 100% of its SOL holdings, although the actual percentage may vary based on liquidity requirements and other operational considerations.
Morgan Stanley said it will not retain any portion of the staking rewards earned by the trust for itself. Figment separately said the products are expected to pass approximately 95% of staking rewards through to shareholders, after accounting for staking provider costs and other deductions.
This makes MSOL one of the first spot Solana products from a major U.S. bank-affiliated asset manager to incorporate staking from its first day of trading.
“MSSE and MSOL extend what we started with MSBT to the two largest Proof-of-Stake networks, with staking integrated from day one,” Ally Wallace, global head of ETFs at Morgan Stanley Investment Management, said in Figment’s announcement.
“Our clients want access to these markets through structures they already understand, and these funds are expected to pass 95% of staking rewards through to shareholders.”
For investors, the structure combines SOL price exposure with participation in one of the asset’s central economic functions. Staking SOL helps secure the Solana network while generating additional token rewards, allowing MSOL shareholders to potentially benefit from both price appreciation and network issuance.
The products are still exposed to the risks associated with staking, including validator failures, periods when assets cannot immediately be transferred or sold, and the possibility that rewards fluctuate or are not received. Morgan Stanley also expects to keep some assets unstaked to support creations, redemptions, and other liquidity needs.
Morgan Stanley’s Crypto Push Expands Beyond Bitcoin
MSOL is Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s third crypto ETP following the launch of the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, or MSBT, in April.
MSBT accumulated more than $381 million in assets under management by July 16, only a few months after entering the market. Morgan Stanley was the first U.S. bank-affiliated asset manager to launch its own cryptocurrency ETP when MSBT debuted.
The addition of Solana and Ethereum now gives the firm products linked to three of the crypto market’s largest assets.
“Digital assets are becoming an increasingly important component of diversified investment portfolios,” Amy Oldenburg, head of digital asset strategy at Morgan Stanley, said.
“As client interest in digital assets continues to grow, we’re focused on providing a range of digital asset solutions that allow investors to diversify their portfolios across traditional and decentralized asset classes while also adhering to Morgan Stanley’s standards for governance, infrastructure and risk management.”
The crypto products sit within Morgan Stanley Investment Management’s broader exchange-traded product business, which has grown to more than $14 billion in assets across 22 products. That platform includes products carrying the Morgan Stanley, Eaton Vance, Parametric and Calvert brands.
The scale of that platform gives MSOL access to a distribution network extending beyond crypto-native investors and into the financial advisers, institutions and traditional brokerage clients already using Morgan Stanley products.
A New Low-Cost Entrant in the Solana ETP Market
MSOL enters a growing U.S. market for regulated Solana exposure, competing with existing products from issuers including Bitwise, Fidelity, Franklin Templeton, Grayscale and VanEck.
Its 0.14% expense ratio gives Morgan Stanley an immediate pricing advantage over much of the existing field.
That equates to approximately $14 in annual management expenses for every $10,000 invested, before accounting for market performance, trading costs or the value of staking rewards.
The pricing mirrors MSBT and MSSE, creating a uniform fee structure across Morgan Stanley’s three digital asset products. Morgan Stanley described the fee as part of its effort to build a competitively priced crypto ETP lineup rather than treating Solana as a niche or premium-priced product.
The decision to combine a low fee with staking also increases pressure on competing issuers. Solana holders can ordinarily earn rewards by staking tokens directly, meaning products that do not stake may face an additional performance disadvantage over longer periods.
Solana Moves Further Into Traditional Finance
Morgan Stanley’s entrance adds another major financial institution to the group developing regulated products around Solana.
The launch is notable not only because of the Morgan Stanley name, but because SOL is being incorporated into the firm’s mainstream ETP lineup alongside Bitcoin and Ethereum.
After attracting hundreds of millions of dollars to its first crypto product within months, Morgan Stanley is now testing whether demand for regulated digital assets extends beyond Bitcoin.
With a low fee, staking enabled from launch and access to a $14 billion product platform, MSOL gives Solana one of its most prominent Wall Street investment vehicles yet.
