Morgan Stanley is reportedly making Bitcoin funds available to its wealth management clients, in the first such move by a big US bank.
As of now, the investment bank is giving its rich clients access to three Bitcoin funds, reported CNBC citing people familiar with the matter.
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Clients can likely start making investments from next month, following the completion of training course by the Morgan Stanley’s advisers linked to the new proposition.
The decision is said to be in response to increasing demand by customers for exposure to the virtual currency.
A pair of these funds are from crypto firm Galaxy Digital. These are the Galaxy Bitcoin Fund and the Galaxy Institutional Bitcoin Fund, with minimum investment thresholds of $25,000 and $5m, respectively.
CI Global Asset Management (CI GAM) too recently worked with Galaxy Digital to file and secure a receipt for a preliminary prospectus for a Bitcoin ETF.
The third fund Morgan Stanley is offering access to is the FS NYDIG Select Fund. A joint offering of FS Investments and NYDIG, it requires a minimum investment of $25,000.
Notably, Morgan Stanley recently participated in a $200m funding round for NYDIG.
However, the bank has also placed some restrictions in this regard. It is opening up the offerings to only those people with “an aggressive risk tolerance” having a minimum of $2m in assets held by the firm.
Investment firms with at least $5m at the bank will also qualify. However, in the two cases, the accounts have to be at least six months old.
Morgan Stanley is also capping Bitcoin investments to 2.5% of total net worth even for investors with enough assets to be eligible, added the report.
Lately, various financial firms have jumped onto the crypto bandwagon.
This January, BlackRock filed prospectus documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to add Bitcoin futures as eligible investments for two funds.
Last month, Toronto-based Purpose Investments secured the regulatory nod to launch a direct custody Bitcoin ETF.
