Morgan Stanley headquarters for a story about proposed Ethereum and Solana ETF filings with staking.

Morgan Stanley Files Low-Fee ETH and SOL ETFs With Staking Built In

By Isaac • June 19, 2026 3:28 pm • Comments

Morgan Stanley sharpened its push into crypto ETFs this week, filing second-amended S-1s for spot Ethereum and Solana funds at a 0.14% sponsor fee.

That fee undercuts the field. The bank also built staking into both products, so the funds would aim to capture price performance and on-chain rewards at once.

Ethereum sits second by market capitalization in CoinGecko’s June 19 data. Solana ranks seventh.

Trending: Ready Pulls Its USDC Card Outside the EEA With One Hour’s Notice

These are not fringe assets, and the staking economics matter.

The proposed tickers are MSSE for Ethereum and MSOL for Solana.


Unchained reported the second-amended Morgan Stanley filings and the aggressive fee positioning.

Morgan Stanley filed second-amended S-1 registration statements for proposed spot Ethereum and Solana ETFs, setting a 0.14% sponsor fee for both products. Unchained noted that the fee would undercut the cheapest existing options in the ether and Solana categories if the funds are approved.

The proposed tickers are MSSE for the Ethereum trust and MSOL for the Solana trust. The filings also name Figment, Galaxy Blockchain Infrastructure, and Coinbase Canada as staking service providers.

That combination makes the amendments more important than a routine fee update. Morgan Stanley is trying to pair low headline pricing with staking economics, which gives the funds a second competitive lever beyond basic asset exposure.

Unchained also tied the new filings to Morgan Stanleys earlier bitcoin ETF push, where the bank used the same 0.14% price point. The central caveat remains clear: the amendments show progress and positioning, but they do not mean the ETH or SOL funds have SEC approval or are already trading.

crypto.news focused on the staking reward split and the operational friction inside the Ethereum filing.

The proposed structure would leave 95% of staking rewards inside the trusts while sending 5% to staking service providers and custodians. That detail matters because it tells readers who benefits from staking income and how much of the rewards would remain with the fund vehicle.

the sponsor would not receive staking rewards beyond its management fee under the proposed structure. That makes the staking language a fund-level investor economics question rather than only a technical network feature.

On Ethereum, the filing data pointed to a large validator activation queue, with about 3.64 million ETH waiting as of May 18, 2026. Based on the daily activation limit, Morgan Stanley estimated that newly staked ETH could face a wait of about 63 days before becoming eligible to earn rewards.

That is a useful reminder that staking inside an ETF wrapper still depends on network capacity, validator operations, slashing risk, and liquidity planning. The broader story is a bank trying to offer staking-aware ETH and SOL exposure while still navigating the operational limits of proof-of-stake networks.


The Ethereum side carries a constraint that staking-curious investors should understand before they assume rewards start flowing on day one.

The Ethereum filing explains that activating new validators runs through a queue, with a maximum of 256 staked ether activated per epoch, or roughly 57,600 ether per day.

crypto.news reported that Morgan Stanley estimated about 3.64 million ETH in the validator activation queue as of May 18, which implied an approximately 63-day wait.

So a freshly launched Ethereum fund could face a real delay before its staked ether starts earning. The queue is a network feature, and any ETH product has to plan around it.

Both funds remain proposed. They are not approved and they are not trading.

The fee war is what makes this filing land. Morgan Stanley came in cheaper than rivals and paired the low cost with retained staking yield, which puts pressure on every issuer chasing the same Ethereum and Solana demand.

If these clear the SEC, the bar for a competitive ETH or SOL ETF just moved on both price and income.

SEC Solana Filing lays out how the proposed Morgan Stanley Solana Trust would approach staking if the offering moves forward.

The filing is a June 18, 2026 S-1/A for the Morgan Stanley Solana Trust, and it identifies the expected ticker as MSOL. The trust seeks to reflect SOL price performance and rewards from staking a portion of the trusts SOL, subject to the sponsors legal, regulatory, and tax-risk determinations.

It describes a passive vehicle that does not use leverage, derivatives, or speculative trading to chase returns beyond SOL exposure and staking rewards. The delegated sponsor intends to cause the trust to engage in staking in connection with the commencement of the offering, but the filing repeatedly frames that ability as conditional.

The Solana custodians would delegate staked assets to validators run by third-party staking providers while keeping the withdrawal address tied to the trusts segregated custody account. The filing says the staking provider does not control cold-storage private keys and cannot transfer, withdraw, or take ownership of the trusts staked SOL.

That custody language is central to the proposal because the ETF wrapper has to translate delegated staking into a structure regulators and institutions can evaluate. The official filing is also a reminder that the product remains preliminary and subject to the SEC process.

SEC Ethereum Filing shows why Ethereum staking inside an ETF wrapper is operationally different from simply holding ETH.

The Ethereum filing describes an activation process that includes transferring ether to the protocol staking deposit contract, waiting in the validator queue, and then waiting an additional short delay before rewards begin. It says a maximum of 256 staked ether can be activated as new validators per epoch, or about 57,600 ether per day.

That limit matters because an ETF trying to stake a meaningful amount of ETH cannot simply flip a switch and have all assets earning rewards immediately. Large inflows, redemptions, liquidity needs, and the validator queue all have to be managed together.

The filing also describes slashing and operational risks if validators fail to meet network requirements or violate protocol rules. That makes staking income less automatic than a headline reward rate may suggest.

For readers, the Ethereum filing grounds the story in real network mechanics: fees and staking rewards are competitive selling points, but execution still depends on validator capacity, custody design, and risk controls. The proposed ETF structure therefore brings proof-of-stake economics into a familiar wrapper without removing the technical constraints behind those rewards.

CoinGecko provides the major-asset market context.

CoinGecko current June 19 market data ranked Bitcoin first, Ethereum second, and Solana seventh by market capitalization in its live market-cap table. Bitcoin was near $63,006 in that snapshot, Ethereum was near $1,701, and Solana was near $68.95, giving the coverage a concrete price backdrop.

Those rankings show why ETF filings and wallet-security warnings involving these assets matter beyond narrow product paperwork or specialist trading desks. Bitcoin remains the anchor asset for ETF product design and wallet-security risk, while Ethereum and Solana remain large proof-of-stake networks with staking-specific product implications.

The ranking also separates these stories from lower-liquidity token chatter because the affected assets sit near the center of crypto market attention. Market rank is context only and does not act as a recommendation or a signal that any asset is insulated from volatility.

The ranking simply establishes that the affected assets are liquid, widely followed, and central to investor attention. It also shows that the filing and security angles land during a weak tape, with Bitcoin and Ethereum both trading well below prior-cycle highs.

That context is useful when a filing or malware warning sounds technical at first but has direct implications for the assets most crypto investors recognize.

Join the conversation!

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

 

Search ProCoinNews