Wall Street’s long-standing reputation for finding creative ways to clip fees is taking a hit today. Morgan Stanley Investment Management launched two new exchange-traded products on July 28, and the bank is forwarding every dollar of staking yield straight to shareholders, keeping none of it beyond its standard management fee.
The Morgan Stanley Ethereum Trust (ticker: MSSE) and Morgan Stanley Solana Trust (ticker: MSOL) began trading on NYSE Arca, offering investors direct exposure to ether and SOL with a staking overlay baked in from day one.
How the economics actually work
The sponsor fee sits at 0.14%, which is about as thin as expense ratios get in the ETF world. Of the gross staking rewards generated, 95% flows back to the trusts and ultimately to shareholders. The remaining 5% goes to the staking service providers and custodians who do the operational work.
Staking providers include Figment, Galaxy Blockchain Infrastructure, and Coinbase Canada. Custody duties are split between BNY Mellon and Coinbase, giving the products a dual-custodian structure that larger institutional investors tend to prefer.
