Morgan Stanley Applies for National Crypto Trust: Implications for BTC and XRP

RippleNet uses XRP as a bridge currency to process cross-border payments in seconds. The traditional SWIFT system, on the other hand, can take several days, is expensive, fragmented, and heavily dependent on intermediary banks.

Morgan Stanley indirectly confirms the narrative that Ripple has been pursuing for years: that XRP is not just a cryptocurrency, but a technological tool for increasing efficiency in global payments.

Amy Oldenburg, Morgan Stanley‘s head of digital assets strategy, appeared February 24–25 at the Bitcoin For Corporations conference in Las Vegas. In a fireside chat with Strategy CEO Phong Le, Oldenburg agreed with Le’s statement that “if there was a company that could ‘orange pill’ the world, it would be Morgan Stanley.”

On January 6, 2026, the firm filed an S-1 for a Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust ETF, along with similar products for ether and Solana. In October 2025 it removed prior restrictions on what type of clients could invest in exchange-traded products (ETPs), allowing financial advisors to offer cryptocurrency funds to all clients in any account type, including retirement accounts.

Previously, only clients with at least $1.5 million in asssets and an aggresive risk tolerance could be sold crypto ETPs.