Morgan Stanley has submitted an utility to determine a nationwide digital asset belief financial institution, marking one other step within the agency’s increasing involvement within the crypto sector.
Based on a public itemizing from the Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money (OCC), the financial institution obtained Morgan Stanley’s utility on February 18, 2026.
The proposed entity, named Morgan Stanley Digital Belief, Nationwide Affiliation (MSDTNA), would function as a federally chartered belief establishment centered on digital asset providers. The OCC has revealed non-confidential parts of the marketing strategy.
Scope of proposed operations
The submitting outlines plans for the belief financial institution to supply custody providers for sure digital belongings, together with execution of purchases, gross sales, swaps, and transfers to help shopper funding actions. The entity would additionally facilitate fiduciary staking providers on behalf of purchasers.
Whereas the belief’s fundamental workplace can be positioned in Buy, New York, the providers are meant to be provided nationwide, topic to regulatory approval.
Nationwide belief financial institution charters from the OCC enable establishments to function beneath federal supervision fairly than counting on a patchwork of state-level licenses. For crypto-focused companies, this construction can present a standardized compliance framework for custody and fiduciary actions.
Morgan Stanley’s utility follows a wave of conditional approvals issued by the OCC in late 2025 and early 2026.
In December 2025, the regulator granted conditional approval for crypto-focused nationwide belief charters to: Circle (First Nationwide Digital Foreign money Financial institution), Ripple (Ripple Nationwide Belief Financial institution), BitGo, Constancy Digital Belongings, Paxos Belief Firm.
In February, three extra companies obtained conditional approval: Stripe (Bridge Nationwide Belief Financial institution), Crypto.com and Protego.
With Morgan Stanley’s submitting, together with pending purposes from Coinbase and World Liberty Monetary, the variety of establishments pursuing OCC crypto belief buildings continues to develop.
Increasing digital asset technique: Bitcoin, Solana and XRP
The belief financial institution utility is a part of a broader digital asset enlargement at Morgan Stanley.
In January, the agency appointed Amy Oldenburg to a newly created position overseeing digital asset technique. It has additionally filed purposes for exchange-traded funds monitoring Bitcoin, Ethereum (Ether), and Solana.
Moreover, Morgan Stanley partnered with Zerohash to allow digital asset buying and selling for purchasers of its E*Commerce platform, increasing retail entry to crypto markets by means of its brokerage channel.
If accredited, Morgan Stanley Digital Belief would offer the agency with a federally regulated construction to custody digital belongings, execute transactions, and supply staking providers inside a fiduciary framework. Such capabilities may place the financial institution to serve institutional and high-net-worth purchasers in search of built-in crypto publicity inside a standard monetary establishment.
RippleNet makes use of XRP as a bridge foreign money to course of cross-border funds in seconds. The standard SWIFT system, however, can take a number of days, is pricey, fragmented, and closely depending on middleman banks.
Morgan Stanley not directly confirms the narrative that Ripple has been pursuing for years: that XRP isn’t just a cryptocurrency, however a technological software for growing effectivity in international funds.
Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley’s head of digital belongings technique, appeared February 24–25 on the Bitcoin For Firms convention in Las Vegas. In a fireplace chat with Technique CEO Phong Le, Oldenburg agreed with Le’s assertion that “if there was an organization that might ‘orange capsule’ the world, it might be Morgan Stanley.”
On January 6, 2026, the agency filed an S-1 for a Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Belief ETF, together with related merchandise for ether and Solana. In October 2025 it eliminated prior restrictions on what kind of purchasers may put money into exchange-traded merchandise (ETPs), permitting monetary advisors to supply cryptocurrency funds to all purchasers in any account kind, together with retirement accounts.
Beforehand, solely purchasers with at the very least $1.5 million in asssets and an aggresive danger tolerance might be offered crypto ETPs.
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