Morgan Stanley filed two amended S-1 registrations with the SEC on June 18, 2026. Two new spot crypto funds: the Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (MSSE) and the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (MSOL). Both carry a proposed 0.14% annual sponsor fee. That undercuts spot Ethereum ETFs from BlackRock and Fidelity. Fee war, incoming.
These are amended filings. Not approvals. The funds aren’t listed. They’re not trading. But what’s inside the documents matters.
The Ethereum Trust isn’t just cheap. It’s structurally different. The MSSE filing addresses staking mechanics directly. It outlines a potential path to pass staking yields through to shareholders. Current approved spot ETH ETFs don’t do that. None of them. The SEC hasn’t resolved whether staking can live inside a listed ETF. That makes Morgan Stanley’s staking language the most-watched element of the disclosure.
The Solana filing is its own story. No U.S. spot SOL ETF exists yet. Not one has been approved. Morgan Stanley’s MSOL joins a wave of altcoin ETF applications filed under the current SEC leadership’s more permissive posture, per Crypto Briefing.
The 0.14% fee isn’t new for Morgan Stanley. Its existing Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) runs the same structure. Same sponsor fee. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a deliberate low-fee strategy across their entire crypto ETF lineup.
For context: BlackRock’s iShares Ethereum Trust (ETHA) and Fidelity’s Ethereum Fund (FETH) have dominated spot ETH since mid-2024 approvals. The Bitcoin ETF space saw brutal fee compression post-launch. Temporary waivers. A race to zero. ETH ETFs haven’t seen that same inflow momentum. Some analysts point to the missing staking yield as a reason why.
Morgan Stanley’s dual filing is a clear signal. One of Wall Street’s biggest asset managers sees room to compete. On price. On product design. Both.
The open question: staking approval. The SEC’s answer shapes everything MSSE can actually deliver.
