NEW YORK — Amy Oldenburg, the pinnacle of digital asset technique at Morgan Stanley (MS), rejected the concept Wall Street is simply now embracing crypto as a consequence of concern of lacking out, arguing that enormous banks are appearing after years of preparation.
“TradFi is getting FOMO and is now getting involved … it really isn’t accurate,” Oldenburg mentioned throughout a panel on the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Tuesday. “We’ve been on a journey around the entire modernization of financial infrastructure for years.”
Her feedback come as main U.S. banks, lengthy seen as cautious on crypto or latecomers to the business, start to increase their choices. For years, corporations like Morgan Stanley restricted exercise to oblique publicity, similar to providing rich purchasers entry to bitcoin funds.
More not too long ago, that is included spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on its E*Trade platform and the financial institution this month even filed to launch its own spot bitcoin ETF.
Broader participation was slowed by regulatory uncertainty and considerations round custody, compliance and market construction. That stance has began to shift, and Morgan Stanley has now outlined a extra outlined digital asset technique, with efforts spanning buying and selling, asset administration and infrastructure.
Oldenburg mentioned the financial institution is getting ready to help tokenized equities buying and selling on its various buying and selling system.
“One of the things that we are planning for the second half of 2026 is turning on our trajectory cross … to support tokenized equities later this year,” she mentioned. The platform already handles equities, ETFs and American depositary receipts (ADRs), which she described as a pure base for growth.
Inside the agency, the transition requires remodeling core methods. “We are having to re-teach ourselves what legacy infrastructure, pipes and plumbing look like,” Oldenburg mentioned, pointing to the problem of upgrading decades-old monetary structure to help sooner settlement and steady buying and selling.
She additionally highlighted a niche between crypto startups and huge establishments.
“There’s so many other connectivity points that we need to plug in around it,” she mentioned, noting that founders usually underestimate how advanced financial institution methods are.
Even so, areas like stablecoins are gaining traction as a approach to transfer cash sooner and at decrease price than conventional methods.
Adoption, nevertheless, is determined by coordination throughout the monetary system. “We can’t just modernize on our own,” Oldenburg mentioned. “This is an incredibly complex, integrated global network.”
Despite weak token costs, she mentioned exercise continues to construct. “It really is very early innings,” Oldenburg mentioned, signaling that Wall Street’s deeper integration with crypto could also be gradual, however its underway.
