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Morgan Stanley (MS) Stock: Landmark Bitcoin Trust Partners with Coinbase and BNY Mellon

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MS Stock Card

TLDR

  • Morgan Stanley submits revised spot Bitcoin ETF filing
  • Coinbase Custody selected to safeguard Bitcoin assets
  • BNY Mellon assigned administrative and cash custody duties
  • Trust valuation tied to CoinDesk 4PM NY Bitcoin benchmark
  • MS stock gains ground amid crypto expansion efforts

Morgan Stanley (MS) has pushed forward with its digital currency ambitions by submitting an updated registration document for its Bitcoin Trust. The financial institution has designated Coinbase Custody Trust Company and BNY Mellon for critical custody and operational functions. MS stock registered at $168.78, climbing 1.71% during robust trading activity.


MS Stock Card

Morgan Stanley, MS

Bitcoin Trust Architecture and Asset Security

The investment giant has designed its proposed trust as a passive spot Bitcoin exchange-traded product. This fund will maintain direct Bitcoin ownership without employing derivatives or borrowed capital. Accordingly, shares will mirror the market value of the underlying Bitcoin reserves.

Coinbase Custody Trust Company has been selected to protect the digital currency holdings through institutional-grade custody solutions. The majority of Bitcoin will remain in offline cold-storage facilities to minimize cybersecurity threats. Small amounts may be moved to hot wallets exclusively during share creation and redemption processes.

BNY Mellon has been appointed to manage administration, transfer agency services, and cash custody operations for the trust. Its responsibilities encompass financial reporting, shareholder record maintenance, and liquidity management activities. Consequently, this operational framework matches conventional ETF industry protocols.

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Valuation System and Risk Management

The trust’s net asset value will be determined through the CoinDesk Bitcoin Benchmark 4 PM New York Settlement Rate. This benchmark aggregates trading information from leading spot cryptocurrency platforms. The ETF will employ a publicly available daily pricing standard.

Regulatory disclosures indicate that custody insurance coverage exists but extends across numerous clients. Nevertheless, such insurance may not fully compensate for every conceivable loss scenario. This language mirrors standard disclosure practices among existing spot Bitcoin ETF providers.

Authorized market participants will deliver cash in exchange for Bitcoin when creating new shares. They may also convert shares back into underlying Bitcoin during the redemption mechanism. This structure enables the fund to preserve liquidity within established regulatory guidelines.

Broader Digital Currency Ambitions

Morgan Stanley originally submitted its Bitcoin Trust application in January. The institution simultaneously filed documentation for a separate Solana exchange-traded fund. These parallel initiatives demonstrate the bank’s comprehensive digital asset strategy.

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The financial services company has additionally pursued a national trust bank charter. Regulatory authorization would enable Morgan Stanley to directly custody cryptocurrencies on behalf of institutional clientele. This capability would position the firm alongside specialized crypto custody providers.

Senior management has outlined intentions to broaden cryptocurrency accessibility throughout its brokerage operations, notably E*Trade. The retail-focused E*Trade platform functions under Morgan Stanley’s corporate umbrella. With roughly $8 trillion in assets under management, the institution seeks to consolidate custody solutions, trading capabilities, and supervisory functions within a unified infrastructure.

 

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Four months on, MEV Capital falls victim to $4B DeFi daisy chain implosion

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Four months on, MEV Capital falls victim to $4B DeFi daisy chain implosion

Almost four months have passed since the devastating disassembly of a DeFi daisy chain, which saw the value of the so-called “yield vault” sector drop by over $4 billion.

Since then, many of the “risk curators” involved have kept a low profile, while others are keen to rebuild confidence.

Last week, it became clear that one such curator hadn’t managed to weather the storm.

MEV Capital dissolves

Last week, The Big Whale reported that MEV Capital would be taken over by one of its partners, Belem Capital. Citing DeFiLlama figures, the article highlights an 80% drop in MEV Capital’s assets under management, dropping from $1.5 billion to $300 million.

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The drop-off was sparked by the firm’s exposure to looped-leverage yield strategies involving deUSD, which depegged in early November in response to the collapse of Stream Finance (not, as the article claims, in the infamous October 10 market crash).

Elixir announced it would discontinue deUSD shortly thereafter.

MEV Capital’s CEO Laurent Bourquin, “seems to have abruptly stepped back,” according to the article.

Additionally, asset tokenization platform Midas Capital disclosed that it had “concluded all business” with MEV Capital, handing management of mMEV and mevBTC to RockawayX. 

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DeFi’s ‘risk curator reckoning’

In late October, worries began to circulate over the integrity of a number of high-yield vault tokens across the DeFi sector.

Days later, one of these risk curators, Stream Finance, collapsed spectacularly after admitting it had lost $93 million. With the quality of its backing exposed, Stream’s vault token, xUSD, lost 75% of its value.

Other assets in the “daisy chain” of recursive lending followed suit, notably Elexir’s deUSD.

The resulting domino effect saw a scramble to unwind leverage across a handful of projects. In all, almost half of the sector’s $10 billion in total value locked was wiped out over the following month.

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It’s since recovered slightly, sitting at around $6 billion.

Some handled it better than others, with users often waiting weeks with no news. Risk curator Re7 Labs even made legal threats to a self-styled “whistleblower” who had publicly complained on behalf of depositors.

‘Any curators reading these reports?’

November’s yield vault apocalypse hinged on recursive lending and borrowing of vault tokens between interconnected projects.

More sustainable projects, however, went unscathed. They’ve increasingly leaned into “institutional-grade” offerings of on-chain, but somewhat more tangible, real world assets (RWA).

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The aforementioned Midas Capital tokenizes off-chain funds such as Fasanara’s F-ONE (as mF-ONE), for example. These come with regular reporting on the state of off-chain assets.

However, some remain unconvinced, asking “any curators reading these reports?” in response to Midas’ recent disclosure of an inaccuracy in their mF-ONE reporting. Another X user called the reporting “trash,” pointing to delays and missing information.

It should be noted that both accounts are contributors at Yearn, a fully on-chain yield aggregator platform.

Read more: Yearn hacker loses $2.4M of $9M loot as tokens burned from wallet

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Off-chain risk, now on-chain

DeFi is often seen as plenty risky enough, but it’s certainly not immune from outside risks.

A detailed December report from curator Steakhouse Financial drew attention to a 2% drop in Midas-tokenized fund mF-ONE, in line with the real-world version.

The dip wasn’t enough to cause any mF-ONE collateralized positions to be liquidated, but still raised eyebrows as a novel asset class in DeFi.

Last week, risk management firm Chaos Labs revisited the episode, pointing to “a bankrupt auto-parts supplier” as the source of the shortfall.

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It makes the case that “yield is risk,” and that “off-chain doesn’t mean safe by default.”

Steakhouse, whose high-yield vault is exposed to mF-ONE, said the post contained “inaccuracies and selective presentations” and accused Chaos Labs of “plagiarismgooning and fudmaxxing.” 

Founder of Steakhouse, Sébastien Derivaux, insisted that mF-ONE is “fit for high yield vaults as collateral.”

Worth it?

The mechanics of bringing RWAs into DeFi are complex. They also make adhering to the maxim “don’t trust, verify,” reliant on issuers’ reporting on off-chain assets.

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Even stranger, their use as collateral may even see lenders receiving lower yield than the collateral itself. Whilst assuming both counterparty and underlying asset risk.

Got a tip? Send us an email securely via Protos Leaks. For more informed news and investigations, follow us on XBluesky, and Google News, or subscribe to our YouTube channel.

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MEXC Expands Tokenized Stock Listings Through Ondo Finance Partnership

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Coinbase, Kraken, Stocks, Bitpanda, Tokenization, RWA Tokenization

Crypto exchange MEXC has expanded its tokenized equities offering through its partnership with Ondo Finance, listing new onchain representations of US stocks that trade against Tether on its platform.

According to company announcements this week, the expansion includes 17 newly listed tokenized stock pairs and seven additional tokens tied to US defense and energy companies.

The tokens are issued as ERC-20 assets on Ethereum and trade against Tether (USDT) pairs on the exchange. The underlying shares are held in regulated trust accounts and subject to quarterly third-party audits, with the tokens designed to represent ownership of the corresponding underlying equities.

A March 3 announcement introduced 17 additional tokenized stock pairs spanning sectors such as technology, healthcare and finance.

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Trading fees for the 17 newly listed tokenized stock pairs will be waived for the first 30 days. The companies did not disclose the names of the individual companies included in the batch.

A separate release on Wednesday added seven tokenized equities tied to defense and energy companies, including Lockheed Martin (LMT), RTX (RTX), ConocoPhillips (COP) and Occidental Petroleum (OXY). Withdrawals for the newly listed tokens are scheduled to begin March 5.

The partnership builds on a series of tokenized equity listings MEXC has introduced with Ondo Finance since launching the product in September 2025. The 17 new pairs are the ninth expansion of the offering.

MEXC is a centralized cryptocurrency exchange founded in 2018 and offering spot and derivatives trading for digital assets. According to CoinMarketCap data, it is the ninth-largest exchange by spot trading volume.

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Ondo Finance is a New York–based blockchain company that focuses on bringing traditional financial assets onchain through tokenization. At the time of writing, assets issued through Ondo total about $2.66 billion in tokenized value, according to RWA.xyz data.

Coinbase, Kraken, Stocks, Bitpanda, Tokenization, RWA Tokenization
Source: RWA.xyz

Related: Kraken debuts tokenized stock perpetual futures for non-US traders

Crypto exchanges move to tokenize assets

The race among crypto exchanges to tokenize stocks has been gaining momentum.

In June, more than 60 tokenized equities became available on exchanges including Kraken and Bybit through Backed Finance’s xStocks product. The lineup included major companies such as Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Tesla, Meta and Netflix.

Gemini has also moved into the sector through a partnership with Dinari. In July, the exchange said customers in the European Union could trade a growing list of tokenized US stocks on its platform, including shares tied to companies such as Exxon, Sony, BlackRock and Visa.

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To be sure, tokenized equities remain largely unavailable to US users as the industry awaits clearer regulatory guidance for blockchain-based securities.

In the meantime, several exchanges are expanding into traditional equities through brokerage-style services. In April, Kraken said it would begin offering trading in about 11,000 US-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds as part of a phased rollout across the United States.

Over the past few months, Coinbase and Bitpanda have also announced stock trading features that allow users to buy and sell equities alongside cryptocurrencies on the same platforms.

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