Morgan Stanley’s Bitcoin Trust (MSBT) made its trading debut on the NYSE Arca on Wednesday, pulling in $30.6 million in first-day inflows and generating $34 million in trading volume — slightly above the $30 million forecast by Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas.
As of April 8, MSBT held 444.4 BTC, worth around $31.7 million, accounting for 0.03% of the estimated 1.29 million BTC collectively held by US spot Bitcoin ETFs.
Second only to BlackRock
MSBT trailed only BlackRock’s IBIT on the day, which saw $40 million in inflows.
Morgan Stanley is the first US bank to offer a spot Bitcoin ETF, and its entry signals that traditional finance still sees room in the market — though it arrives roughly two years after the 2024 launch wave set a far higher bar for first-day demand.
Total ETF flows turn negative
The combined inflows from IBIT and MSBT weren’t enough to offset selling elsewhere.
The Fidelity FBTC saw $79 million in outflows, while ARK 21Shares’ ARKB shed roughly $75 million.
Grayscale’s GBTC added another $11 million in redemptions, pushing total daily outflows from US spot Bitcoin ETFs to $124.5 million — marking two consecutive days of net selling after Monday’s $471 million inflow, the largest single-day figure since late February.
How MSBT stacks up against the 2024 class
MSBT’s debut was modest compared to the January 2024 launch wave, when GBTC and IBIT handled $2.3 billion and $1 billion in opening-day volume respectively, and IBIT alone saw $112 million in first-day inflows.
Despite the gap, Balchunas noted that MSBT is still on track to rank among the top ETF launches of the past year, placing it above recent launches like the Bitwise Solana Staking ETF and the Canary XRP ETF, which clustered around a $60 million volume threshold.
