FX.co ★ Morgan Stanley will allow its clients to invest in bitcoin

American financial conglomerate Morgan Stanley claims to be the first major bank to provide its clients with the opportunity to invest in bitcoin funds. However, there is a certain caveat: not everyone will be able to invest in the funds. This is only open to those customers whose funds under the management of this bank amount to at least $2 million. Investment companies can also invest in bitcoin, but to get this opportunity, they must have at least $5 million in their account with the specified bank.

Morgan Stanley's management warns that only 2.5% of their assets will be able to invest in bitcoin, and this applies even to US-accredited investors with brokerage accounts and considerable funds.

Morgan Stanley plans to give access to three funds that allow you to own bitcoin. Two of them are owned by Galaxy Digital, and the third is jointly owned by asset manager FS Investments and bitcoin company NYDIG. The Galaxy Bitcoin Fund LP and FS NYDIG Select Fund have a $25,000 entry threshold. To access the Galaxy Institutional Bitcoin Fund LP, you need to have $5 million.

In April this year, Morgan Stanley clients will be able to invest in the most popular cryptocurrency. Perhaps this will happen after the bank's financial specialists acquire certain knowledge necessary to work with new proposals for clients.

It is worth noting that other large American banks, for example, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America, do not yet offer their clients direct investments in bitcoin. JPMorgan introduced something new in early March - a basket of shares of companies that are associated with cryptocurrency. These were the Bitcoin storage software company MicroStrategy and the Square Jack Dorsey payment service that provides blockchain services.

A significant jump in the value of bitcoin over the past 12 months is forcing large banks to think about recognizing cryptocurrency as a full-fledged asset class. Today, bitcoin is trading above $57,000.