How do you guys view and contextualize Bitcoin, um, in comparison to, to other assets that people could allocate to?

When we have conversations with clients, I think there's a couple different buckets that the, the conversation around Bitcoin falls into.

You had mentioned the idea of, of digital gold, and I do think that is a really strong, uh, position for Bitcoin to play.

I would love to see that continue to develop, um, and, and hold that through various cycles.

I think that's a good position for it.

We've actually put out a second research, uh, piece just this week, uh, that, that also reiterates this on digital gold.

We've c- started covering digital assets on our research side, on the institutional security side, which I'm really excited about, um, just continue to expand that focus and coverage of digital assets.

... you know, do you, how do you think about these different regimes? Do you think this, this Bitcoin-gold correlation has staying power? Um, you know, uh, I guess can you help us unpack, uh, what your team is seeing out there?

So can you talk a little bit about the demand you've seen? I mean, obviously, this was a winner.

Uh, it, uh, it's, it's...

I'm amazed a little bit by it.

Like, y- y- you know, you definitely cheerlead for your own product, but you just don't know.

Like, you don't know until it turns on what, what is gonna happen.

Uh, e- we had a fair bit of feedback from the street that there was, uh, a need for us to get involved in this space, but we also had a fair bit of, uh, feedback from the street, like, "Why do you guys need to launch this? We already have 20-some, you know, Bitcoin ETPs," and, "What's different about your product?" Uh, so we tried our best to, to differentiate and bring that institutional, uh, construct to the ETP when we launched it.

We came out to market at 14 basis points, so we worked very hard to try to really get that cost basis down, uh, in terms of a manage- overall management fee on that ETP, and then also when thinking about the, uh, thinking about the custody.

... like, what do you say to those who are really against the, the, the movement, the entry of institutions into Bitcoin and are just inherently skeptical of anything you guys do in this space?

So walk me through a little bit about the thinking and the strategy associated with Morgan Stanley's digital asset aspirations.

Yeah.

And, and maybe like stepping back a little bit, I think everyone feels that, uh, you know, we just started this, uh, journey within the last few months, but this has really been years in the making that we've been working on a lot of this down quietly in different parts of the business.

The regulatory landscape has changed and allowed us to, uh, come out more publicly with some of our, our market activities.

And I think the really interesting thing to, to talk about too, um, it's not just our wealth business, it's not just the ETPs, it really is happening across the entire firm.

Uh, and that's one reason even I'm, uh, in the role that I'm, that I'm in now, uh, at, at the top of the house.

We're doing it across our institutional securities business.

Yeah

Right

... um, really trying to just keep our heads down and, uh, make sure we don't get in any trouble, especially with the environment that we were living in.

And now here we are, uh, not that much, uh, ahead of time, with a totally different regulatory regime and, uh, and now we're a- able to bring some of these, uh, products to market and support our clients.

And I think that's one thing for the clients that's really important, to have the one view, to m- have all of their investments in one place, to look at their risk exposure across the board, both for our institutional clients and our wealth clients, so that's a big deal.

Can you just talk to us a little bit about when these conversations started and what kind of conversations were happening behind the scenes?

Yeah, I mean, this is going back, this is going back years.

I mean, even Consensus, uh, it's great to be here in Miami.

We were in Austin for many years, uh, you know, doing the same work we're doing today, just a little more quietly.