Morgan Stanley equity fund owns 28.2K shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, per SEC

Wall Street investment bank Morgan Stanley has gained exposure to Bitcoin (BTC) through Grayscale, offering further evidence of wider institutional acceptance of digital assets.

The Morgan Stanley Europe Opportunity Fund, which invests in established and emerging companies throughout Europe, owned 28,298 shares of the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, or GBTC, as of April 30, according to a June 28 filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. At a current GBTC price of $29.68, Morgan Stanley’s exposure is worth roughly $840,000.

The exposure was worth over $1.3 million at the end of April, according to the filing.

Morgan Stanley's Europe Opportunity Fund is designed to seek maximum capital appreciation by investing in assets that "the investment team believes are undervalued at the time of purchase." 

Grayscale is by far the world’s largest crypto asset manager, with $29 billion in assets under management. The Grayscale Bitcoin Trust accounts for the lion’s share of assets at over $21.7 billion.

06/25/21 UPDATE: Net Assets Under Management, Holdings per Share, and Market Price per Share for our Investment Products.

Total AUM: $29.0 billion$BTC $BCH $ETH $ETC $ZEN $LTC $XLM $ZEC $BAT $LINK $MANA $FIL $LPT pic.twitter.com/Oq4NzO4H90

— Grayscale (@Grayscale) June 25, 2021

Related: Bitcoin sell pressure may hit zero in July thanks to Grayscale’s giant 16K BTC unlocking

As Cointelegraph reported, Morgan Stanley has been seeking more direct exposure to Bitcoin this year. In April, the investment bank added Bitcoin exposure to 12 investment funds through Grayscale and cash-settled futures. At the time, the Europe Opportunity Fund was not listed as a potential target for Bitcoin investments. However, the firm did include several "Opportunity" portfolios targeting Asia and global markets. 

Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley made its first capital investment into blockchain by co-leading a $48 million Series B financing round for Securitize, a Coinbase-backed tokenization platform.