A Bloomberg report hit the news cycle today stating that $150 billion Morgan Stanley investing arm is considering adding Bitcoin to its portfolio.
Counterpoint Global (CG), a unit of Morgan Stanley Investment Management, who’s primary objective is to seek long term appreciation,
is set to make an investment in the volatile cryptocurrency. Bitcoin will be on the list of their possible bets pending an exploration of their client needs.
However, In order to move forward with any investment in the top cryptocurrency, CG would need approval from Morgan Stanley and regulators.
Morgan Stanley is willing to place it’s almost 200 year old Wall Street name behind a volatile asset class that’s still
striving to obtain acceptance in much of the traditional financial industry. Nevertheless, Morgan Stanley is joining a list of others Wall Street
financial institution recently adding cryptocurrency to is exploration list.
Recently cryptocurrencies have made headway with more mainstay firms such as Mastercard Inc., and Tesla Inc, the leading maker of electric cars.
Elon Musk joined into Bitcoin with a $1.5 billion investment and plans to start accepting the cryptocurrency as payment. This week also included the BNY Mellon Bank, another Wall St.
giant, which is launching cryptocurrency custody services for its clients. This 247 year old banking giant has $2.2 trillion in assets under management,
with over $41 trillion in custody. Nevertheless, a review could also ultimately result in Morgan Stanley opting to stay away from Bitcoin.
Previous rallies in the cryptocurrency have also attracted flurries of Wall Street interest only to fade away.
Billions of dollars have been pouring into the cryptocurrency through vehicles including the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust.
There’s more to think about for Wall Street investors regarding this new cryptocurrency, for Wall Street firms, an inability to offer
Bitcoin to those clients raises a serious risk of losing them to other managers.
Currently, Bitcoin is settling at $47,300, just $1000 away from its all-time high.
The total cryptocurrency market capitalization is also at a record high, hovering at $1.49 trillion.
