Wall Street’s Barrier Comes Down
Key Highlights:
• Morgan Stanley drops wealth and risk restrictions, opening Bitcoin and Ether funds to all client accounts, including 401(k)s and trusts.
• The decision follows Trump’s executive order easing barriers for crypto and alternative assets in retirement portfolios.
Yello, Paradisers! In a major turning point for mainstream adoption, Morgan Stanley will allow crypto investments across all client accounts starting October 15, according to CNBC.
That includes retirement plans and trust accounts, marking a full reversal from its previous policy that required at least $1.5 million in assets and an “aggressive” risk profile.
Advisors will now be able to recommend Bitcoin and Ether funds managed by BlackRock and Fidelity to every investor class. It’s the first time a top-tier U.S. bank has made crypto exposure available to the full wealth spectrum, from retirees to institutional clients.
As one senior advisor put it, “This isn’t just opening a door. It’s removing the velvet rope.”
Washington’s Crypto Thaw
The timing tracks perfectly with Washington’s regulatory shift. In August, President Donald Trump signed an executive order instructing the Department of Labor and SEC to make it easier for 401(k)s to include alternative assets such as crypto, gold, and private equity.
While the order didn’t instantly change the law, it overturned previous discouragements and gave regulators 180 days to outline new safe-harbor rules. Early advisory opinions from the Labor Department now hint that employers will face fewer legal risks for including crypto in retirement plans, effectively greenlighting a slow but powerful transformation in wealth management.
Portfolio Models Meet Bitcoin
Morgan Stanley’s Global Investment Committee has already moved to formalize guidance, recommending crypto allocations of up to 4% in diversified model portfolios, ranging from 0% for conservative investors to 4% for “opportunistic growth” clients.
“Crypto remains speculative, but increasingly popular,” the committee noted in an internal memo dated October 1, urging rebalancing to control concentration risk.
At launch, Morgan Stanley will limit options to BlackRock and Fidelity-managed crypto funds, but plans to expand its roster as markets mature. Later this year, the firm also intends to enable direct Bitcoin, Ether, and Solana trading via its E-Trade platform.
This strategy aligns closely with what we predicted in a recent MCP News and Youtube stream, that major wealth managers would pivot from gatekeeping to onboarding as ETF volumes surged past $77 billion. That forecast aged well.
The New Era of Accessible Crypto Wealth
The implications are enormous. By lowering the entry bar, Morgan Stanley has effectively normalized institutional-grade crypto exposure for retirement investors. Analysts say the move could spark a wave of inflows into Bitcoin and Ether ETFs, possibly triggering a second liquidity wave similar to early 2024’s ETF boom.
We’ll be unpacking the ripple effects, from ETF demand shifts to regulatory signaling, inside MCP News Private, our members-only $3/month service that tracks how major financial institutions are positioning in real time.
You can’t drink our news like a coffee, but it’ll give you caffeine-grade clarity on what’s about to happen next in crypto finance.
We will discuss this policy shift in our MCP YouTube stream, where our analyst will break down how Trump’s executive order quietly reset Wall Street’s risk calculus.
