New York, May 7, 2026, 13:08 (EDT)
- Morgan Stanley is piloting spot crypto trading on ETrade at 50 basis points, putting new fee pressure on Coinbase, Robinhood and Charles Schwab.
- Coinbase stock was lower in midday trading, hours before the company is due to report first-quarter results.
- Hut 8’s $9.8 billion AI data-center lease added a second signal: crypto-linked companies are being repriced around Wall Street distribution and power-hungry AI infrastructure.
Morgan Stanley’s move to offer cryptocurrency trading on ETrade at cheaper prices has put fresh pressure on Coinbase Global, pulling the largest U.S. crypto exchange into a price fight with a Wall Street firm that already has millions of brokerage customers. Bloomberg reported that the bank is charging 50 basis points on each crypto transaction and plans to open the product to all 8.6 million ETrade clients later this year.
That matters now because crypto access is moving from specialist exchanges into ordinary brokerage accounts, where investors already hold stocks, exchange-traded funds and cash. Morgan Stanley had said last year it would offer bitcoin, ether and solana trading on ETrade through Zerohash, a digital-asset infrastructure provider, and Coinbase is due to report first-quarter results after the market closes on Thursday.
Coinbase shares were down 2.6% at $192.85 in midday trading in New York, while Morgan Stanley slipped 1.4%, Robinhood fell 3.5% and Charles Schwab lost 2.6%. Bitcoin traded near $79,840, down 2.2% on the day, after briefly moving above $81,000 earlier.
A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point, so Morgan Stanley’s 50-basis-point fee equals 0.5% of the trade value. Investing.com reported Wednesday that Coinbase stock had pared earlier gains after the Bloomberg report, which said Morgan Stanley’s fee undercut Coinbase, Robinhood and Schwab.
Jed Finn, Morgan Stanley’s head of wealth management, framed the push as more than a fee move. “This is much bigger than trading crypto at a cheaper rate,” he told Bloomberg, calling the strategy “disintermediating the disintermediators.” Investing.com India
Eric Balchunas, a Bloomberg ETF analyst, was blunter. Crypto exchanges “should be scared,” he wrote, according to CCN, adding that Schwab “likely won’t let this stand” if Morgan Stanley’s pricing sticks. Ccn
Coinbase is already cutting costs. The company said Tuesday it would eliminate about 700 jobs, or 14% of its global workforce, and expects $50 million to $60 million in restructuring charges; Clear Street analyst Owen Lau said the move was “supportive of forward profitability,” while Jefferies analyst Daniel T. Fannon said April trading activity across digital-asset exchanges had slowed. Reuters
But the ETrade rollout still carries execution and risk questions. ETrade says spot crypto trades in bitcoin, ethereum and solana are powered by Zerohash through a separate non-brokerage account, and that digital assets held through Zerohash are not FDIC insured or SIPC protected. Low fees may help, but custody, regulation and weak trading volumes can still slow adoption.
The same market tape showed a different kind of crypto pivot. Hut 8 said Wednesday it signed a 15-year, $9.8 billion lease for the first phase of its Beacon Point data center campus in Texas, sending the stock up more than 25% in early trading as investors rewarded the company’s shift toward AI infrastructure.
The Hut 8 deal covers 352 megawatts of IT capacity and could be worth as much as $25.1 billion if renewal options are exercised. Hut 8 said the transaction lifts its total contracted AI data-center capacity to 597 megawatts and its aggregate base-term contract value to about $16.8 billion; CEO Asher Genoot said the company now has a “contracted revenue base of $16.8 billion.” Hut 8
For Coinbase, the competitive issue is no longer only Binance-style offshore exchanges or Robinhood’s retail app. It is the possibility that brokers such as Morgan Stanley and Schwab make crypto trading feel like another tab inside a brokerage account, while crypto-native companies fight to defend fees, users and trading volume.
The next markers are clear: Coinbase’s results after the close, Morgan Stanley’s pace of rollout, and whether Robinhood or Schwab respond on pricing. If they do, the latest crypto bull case may come with a less friendly tag for exchanges: lower margins.
