Morgan Stanley's Bitcoin ETF is here and a two-week ceasefire with Iran lifts crypto markets.

This is Coin Desk Daily. I'm Jen Sanassi.

Morgan Stanley's spot Bitcoin ETF is set to begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange today under the ticker MSBT, making it the first

proprietary Bitcoin fund issued by a top 10 U.S. bank. The fund tracks the Coin Desk Bitcoin

benchmark rate and charges a 14 basis point annual fee. This is the lowest of any U.S.

spot Bitcoin ETF undercutting Black Rocks, I shares Bitcoin Trust at 25 basis points. The launch is part of a broader

digital asset pushed by Morgan Stanley, which has also filed for a spot Solana ETF and plans

to roll out direct trading in Bitcoin Ether and Solana in the first half of this year.

Since the first 11 spot Bitcoin ETF debuted in January 2024, the group has collectively

drawn more than $56 billion in net inflows.

Morgan Stanley's entry is likely to accelerate that trend with their massive $6.2 trillion in

client assets. President Trump's announcement on a two-week ceasefire with Iran sent Bitcoin

passed $72,000. The move triggered $595 million in total crypto liquidations across more than 118,000 traders. Shorts accounted for $427 million of that, reflecting just how heavily the market was positioned for further downside heading into the deadline. Bitcoin now sits at the $65,000 to $73,000 range that has contained every rally

and sell-off since the war began. Whether this breaks the range or becomes another head fake,

depends on what the two-week ceasefire turns into. And newly disclosed phone records show

Argentine President Javier Malay exchanged multiple calls with entrepreneur Maurizio Novelli around the launch

of the failed Libra token, deepening scrutiny of his role in the project.

Court documents from a federal investigation show phone calls between Malay and Noveli on the

night of the token's February 2025 launch.

The calls occurred both before and after Malay promoted the token on social media, according to the New York Times.

Coin desk first reported on Malay's ties to the scandal over a year ago after obtaining text messages

in which Libra co-creator Hayden Davis claimed he had influence over the Argentine president's inner circle.

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