Morgan Stanley is now undermining Coinbase, Robinhood, and Charles Schwab on bitcoin and cryptocurrency trading fees — and Strike CEO Jack Mallers isn’t worried about it at all.
Growing footprint on Wall Street
The bank recently launched a pilot program for cryptocurrency trading through its E*Trade platform, charging customers 50 basis points per transaction. This is less than what the largest US cryptocurrency platforms and brokerages charge for standard retail trades.
It’s one of the clearest signs yet that traditional financial giants are moving deeper into digital asset territory.
But Mallers, whose payments company Strike was created BitcoinHe strongly disagreed with the idea that this trend was causing a problem for the asset.
He was asked what Bitcoin did Podcast Whether or not institutional interference threatens Bitcoin’s fundamental principles, his answer was short: no.
“If Wall Street getting into Bitcoin was going to kill it, it would never have worked in the first place,” Mallers told host Danny Knowles in the episode posted Thursday on YouTube.
Bitcoin: Money for everyone – including your enemies
His argument rests on what he sees as Bitcoin’s founding promise. He said assets are built on the idea of being money for all people — not just those who share the same politics, values or background.
This was expanded to include competitors and opponents. In his view, a network that claims to be open to everyone cannot logically set a limit on Wall Street.
Mallers said large institutional buying was always going to happen, because Bitcoin competes for global capital. He described a future in which real estate, fine art, and government debt lose value relative to Bitcoin as adoption of the asset increases around the world.
spot Bitcoin ETFs It launched in the US in January 2024, and had attracted nearly $60 billion in net inflows across 11 funds as of Friday, based on… Data From Farside.
A different concern among Bitcoin users
Not everyone in the Bitcoin community shares Mallers’ calm. Some argue that concentrated ownership by large institutions creates a different kind of risk – risk that manifests itself through influence, not law.
Venture capitalist and Bitcoin user Nick Carter raised this concern in February. He warned that large institutional owners may eventually become frustrated with Bitcoin developers due to unresolved issues such as quantum computing threats.
According to Carter, these institutions could push to replace current developers entirely.
“I think the big institutions that are now in Bitcoin will get fed up, and they will fire developers and hire new ones,” he said.
Featured image from Pexels, chart from TradingView
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