Morgan Stanley now holds $29.9 million in Bitwise’s Solana staking ETF, a meaningful increase in the firm’s indirect exposure to SOL during the first quarter of 2025. In the context of traditional finance touching Solana-specific products, it’s one of the larger public positions on record.
The move is part of a broader push by Morgan Stanley into crypto-linked exchange-traded products. It comes at a time when SOL itself has been having a rough year, trading around $82.48 and sitting roughly 38% below where it started 2025.
Morgan Stanley’s growing crypto playbook
The Bitwise ETF position isn’t an isolated bet. On January 6, 2025, Morgan Stanley Investment Management filed two S-1 registration statements with the SEC: one for a Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, the other for a Morgan Stanley Solana Trust.
The Solana trust is described as a passive vehicle designed to track the price of SOL, the native token of the Solana blockchain. The Bitcoin trust operates on the same principle, just with Bitcoin as the underlying asset.
Morgan Stanley only began allowing its wealth advisors to pitch Bitcoin ETFs to eligible clients in mid-2024. The leap from “okay, you can mention Bitcoin” to “we’re filing our own Solana trust” happened remarkably fast by Wall Street standards.
Why Solana, and why now
For Morgan Stanley, the staking component of the Bitwise ETF adds another dimension. Solana’s proof-of-stake mechanism allows token holders to earn yield by participating in network validation. A staking ETF passes some of that yield through to investors, making the product more attractive than a simple spot exposure vehicle.
What this means for investors
The S-1 filings for Morgan Stanley’s own Bitcoin and Solana trusts are still working through the SEC’s review process. If approved, they would give the firm’s advisory network in-house products to recommend, a significant upgrade from directing clients to third-party ETFs like Bitwise’s offering.
SOL’s 38% decline this year is a reminder that institutional interest doesn’t insulate an asset from volatility. Solana’s network has faced criticism for centralization concerns and past outages, factors that could weigh on regulatory decisions or institutional risk committees.