Morgan Stanley taps Coinbase and BNY for custody in proposed Bitcoin ETF

• The Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust plans to store its bitcoin with Coinbase Custody and BNY, with BNY also serving as administrator, transfer agent and cash custodian.
• CoinDesk benchmark for pricing: The ETF will track bitcoin using the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark 4PM New York Settlement Rate, which aggregates trading activity across major spot exchanges to determine the fund’s daily valuation.

Morgan Stanley (MS) has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a prospectus outlining the structure of the proposed Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust, revealing that the fund plans to use Coinbase Custody (COIN) and the Bank of New York Mellon (BNY) to safeguard its bitcoin holdings, according to a form S‑1 submitted.

The two institutions will serve as the trust’s bitcoin custodians, responsible for storing the digital assets and facilitating transfers related to share creations and redemptions.

The filing outlines a custody structure designed to mirror traditional institutional standards. Bitcoin will largely be held in offline cold storage vaults, where private keys remain disconnected from the internet to reduce hacking risks. A portion of the assets may temporarily move to trading wallets during ETF creation or redemption activity. The trust notes that custody insurance exists but is shared across customers and may not cover all potential losses.

BNY will also play several additional roles within the ETF structure. The bank will serve as the fund administrator, transfer agent, and cash custodian, handling accounting, shareholder records, and cash flows tied to ETF transactions.

The ETF itself will be structured as a passive vehicle designed to track the price of bitcoin by holding the cryptocurrency directly rather than using derivatives or leverage.

The filing also states that the trust will calculate its net asset value using the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark 4PM New York Settlement Rate, which aggregates trade data from major spot exchanges to determine the daily reference price for bitcoin.

• Disrupting a Stagnant Market: Pudgy Penguins is utilizing a "Negative CAC" model to challenge the traditional $31.7B licensed toy industry by treating physical merchandise as a profitable user acquisition tool rather than just a final product.

• Crypto-related stocks rallied at the open of Wednesday's U.S. session as bitcoin briefly climbed above $72,000 for the first time in nearly a month.
• COIN, MSTR, GLXY, HOOD surged 8%-12%, with miners BITF, HUT, IREN also bouncing.
• Bitcoin's move into the closely watched $70,000 to $72,000 range, which has capped recent rallies, is a key test of whether the latest advance can be sustained.

Disclosure & Polices: CoinDesk is an award-winning media outlet that covers the cryptocurrency industry. Its journalists abide by a strict set of editorial policies. CoinDesk has adopted a set of principles aimed at ensuring the integrity, editorial independence and freedom from bias of its publications. CoinDesk is part of Bullish (NYSE:BLSH), an institutionally focused global digital asset platform that provides market infrastructure and information services. Bullish owns and invests in digital asset businesses and digital assets and CoinDesk employees, including journalists, may receive Bullish equity-based compensation.