Morgan Stanley says Wall Street’s crypto push is years in the making

Morgan Stanley digital asset strategist Amy Oldenburg said Wall Street’s growing crypto involvement is not driven by hype. Speaking at the Digital Asset Summit in New York, she argued that banks have spent years modernizing financial infrastructure behind the scenes. Oldenburg said the bank is expanding its digital asset strategy across trading, asset management, and infrastructure. A key milestone is planned support for tokenized equities on its alternative trading system in the second half of 2026, building on the platform’s existing handling of equities, ETFs, and American Depositary Receipts. She emphasized the operational hurdles: upgrading legacy banking systems (“pipes and plumbing”) to enable faster settlement and continuous trading, and integrating with a broader network of connectivity points that crypto startups often underestimate. She also noted stablecoins are gaining traction because they can move value faster and at lower cost than traditional rails. Despite weak token prices, Oldenburg said institutional activity is still building and that this is “very early innings.” Overall, her message frames Wall Street’s crypto push as a gradual, infrastructure-led shift—more execution than FOMO—likely to unfold over multiple quarters rather than abruptly.