Morgan Stanley is creating a new bitcoin fund, its fourth.
Morgan Stanley’s first bitcoin funds were launched in March, but yesterday an application to create a fourth fund was filed with the SEC.
The name of the applicant is FS NYDIG Institutional Bitcoin Fund of New York, which reveals the participation of the same partners (NYDIG and FS Investments) as one of the previous funds, and Morgan Stanley Smith Barney appears as the fund’s “Sales Compensation”.
Sales for the new fund have yet to commence, and Morgan Stanley:
“will receive certain placement and servicing fees with respects to clients it refers to the issuer, as disclosed to the applicable clients”.
Morgan Stanley’s funds on Bitcoin
The first fund of its kind to be launched by Morgan Stanley in March, the FS NYDIG Select Bitcoin Fund, had attracted nearly $30 million from investors, but this new one could attract even more if, as the name suggests, it is dedicated specifically to institutional investors.
In fact, the new fund has almost the same name as the first, but instead of ‘Select’ it has ‘Institutional’ in its name.
NYDIG (New York Digital Investment Group) is a financial services company dedicated specifically to Bitcoin, and these funds are created specifically for Morgan Stanley’s clients.
Morgan Stanley is a large investment bank based in New York, founded in 1935, listed on Wall Street under the ticker MS, with 68,000 employees and a turnover of 48 billion dollars.
These funds allow the bank to offer its clients the opportunity to invest in bitcoin without having to acquire and store BTC, as many of Morgan Stanley’s clients are traditional investors who do not particularly like dealing with wallets and tokens.
The fact that the large US investment bank is expanding its offering of financial products that allow participation in the bitcoin market reveals a clear increase in interest in these assets on the part of its clientele. If, as one might guess from the name of the new fund, large institutional investors are among this increasingly interested clientele, this increase in interest should be seen as a move with significant potential.
It remains to be seen how much capital the new fund will be able to raise.
