New York, May 7, 2026, 13:08 (EDT)
- Morgan Stanley is testing out spot crypto trading on ETrade, charging 50 basis points—a move that turns up the fee heat on Coinbase, Robinhood, and Charles Schwab.
- Coinbase shares slipped in midday action, with the company set to release its first-quarter results later today.
- Hut 8’s $9.8 billion AI data-center lease throws another sign into the mix: Wall Street is revaluing crypto-adjacent firms as distribution channels and as muscle for energy-intensive AI buildout.
Morgan Stanley is rolling out crypto trading on ETrade, slashing prices and putting Coinbase Global under new pricing strain. The Wall Street bank is charging 50 basis points per crypto trade, Bloomberg reported, and intends to extend access to all 8.6 million ETrade clients before the year’s out. Coinbase, the biggest U.S. crypto exchange, is now facing direct competition from a firm with a massive brokerage customer base.
The shift is happening: crypto is edging into standard brokerage accounts, alongside stocks, ETFs, and cash. Morgan Stanley last year announced plans for ETrade clients to trade bitcoin, ether, and solana via Zerohash, its digital-asset backbone. Coinbase, meanwhile, will release its first-quarter numbers after Thursday’s close.
Coinbase dropped 2.6% to $192.85 by midday in New York. Morgan Stanley was off 1.4%, Robinhood gave up 3.5%, and Charles Schwab also shed 2.6%. As for Bitcoin, it hovered around $79,840, down 2.2% after an earlier jump above $81,000.
A basis point amounts to 0.01%, which means Morgan Stanley’s 50-basis-point charge works out to 0.5% of the transaction. Coinbase shares had given up some earlier gains after a Bloomberg headline, Investing.com noted on Wednesday. The fee, according to Bloomberg’s reporting, came in lower than what Coinbase, Robinhood and Schwab typically charge.
For Jed Finn, who heads up Morgan Stanley’s wealth management arm, the initiative isn’t just about cutting fees. “This is much bigger than trading crypto at a cheaper rate,” he said to Bloomberg, describing the approach as “disintermediating the disintermediators.” Investing.com India
Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas didn’t mince words. As reported by CCN, he said crypto exchanges “should be scared,” and pointed out that if Morgan Stanley’s pricing holds, Schwab “likely won’t let this stand.” Ccn
Coinbase on Tuesday announced it’s slashing around 700 positions—roughly 14% of its global staff—and is bracing for $50 million to $60 million in restructuring costs. Clear Street’s Owen Lau saw the cuts as “supportive of forward profitability.” Jefferies’ Daniel T. Fannon, meanwhile, flagged a slowdown in April trading volumes on digital-asset exchanges. Reuters
But questions remain about execution and risk as ETrade moves forward. ETrade notes that spot crypto trading—covering bitcoin, ethereum and solana—runs through Zerohash, set up via a separate non-brokerage account. Crypto assets with Zerohash don’t carry FDIC insurance or SIPC protection. Even with low fees, hurdles around custody, regulation, and thin trading volumes could still put the brakes on adoption.
Elsewhere in crypto, Hut 8 turned heads Wednesday after announcing a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease tied to the opening phase of its Beacon Point data center campus in Texas. That news triggered a more than 25% jump in Hut 8’s shares at the open, as investors reacted to the company’s push into AI infrastructure.
Hut 8’s latest deal locks in 352 megawatts of IT capacity, and, factoring in renewal options, could reach a total value of $25.1 billion. With this move, the company says its total contracted AI data-center capacity stands at 597 megawatts, and its aggregate base-term contract value is pegged at roughly $16.8 billion. CEO Asher Genoot put it this way: the company now sits on a “contracted revenue base of $16.8 billion.” Hut 8
Coinbase isn’t just up against offshore rivals like Binance or retail plays like Robinhood anymore. Now, there’s a real chance that legacy brokers—think Morgan Stanley, Schwab—could turn crypto trading into just another feature in a standard brokerage platform. As that happens, crypto-native firms are left scrambling to hold on to their fees, their user base, and the volume that keeps them afloat.
Watch for Coinbase’s numbers after the bell, Morgan Stanley’s rollout speed, and any pricing moves from Robinhood or Schwab. Should they jump in, exchanges could see the crypto bull story twist—lower margins might be part of the deal.
