Morgan Stanley and Franklin Templeton Announce Major Crypto Collaborations

Coinidol.com: September 26, 2025, saw two massive moves by Wall Street giants, signaling that institutional adoption is accelerating despite market volatility.

Morgan Stanley’s strategic partnership

First, Morgan Stanley announced a strategic partnership with Zerohash, a digital asset infrastructure provider, to enable crypto trading for clients of its acquisition, E*Trade. The deal, valued at $1 billion, will allow E*Trade clients to trade Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana starting in 2026.

Now, this collaboration focuses on providing liquidity, custody, and settlement services, positioning Morgan Stanley to compete directly with platforms like Robinhood and Charles Schwab by offering direct crypto access to its vast customer base and trillions in assets under management. This is a powerful move that legitimizes crypto as a brokerage-level asset class.

The banking industry was under the pressure from the massive number of investors that have adopted Bitcoin for many years, and the industry is being forced to think of incorporating cryptocurrency in their banking systems, as Coinidol.com reported.

Franklin Templeton’s digital asset collaboration

Second, asset management giant Franklin Templeton launched a major digital asset collaboration with the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance. This partnership will allow Franklin Templeton to leverage Binance’s global trading infrastructure to offer its services to a broader range of investors. This is an example of a regulated, multi-trillion-dollar asset manager partnering directly with a leading crypto-native exchange, further blurring the lines between traditional finance and the crypto ecosystem.

These two events underscore the clear trend: regulated financial institutions are moving beyond passively offering Bitcoin ETFs and are actively integrating crypto trading and asset management into their core business models.