NEW YORK – Amy Oldenburg, head of digital asset strategy at Morgan Stanley (MS), rejected the idea that Wall Street is only now embracing cryptocurrencies for fear of missing out, arguing that big banks are acting after years of preparation.
“TradFi is getting FOMO and now getting involved… it’s really not accurate,” Oldenburg said during a panel at the Digital Asset Summit in New York on Tuesday. “We have been going through the entire modernization of the financial infrastructure for years.”
His comments come as major US banks, long considered cautious of cryptocurrencies or newcomers to the industry, begin to expand their offerings. For years, companies like Morgan Stanley restricted their activity to indirect exposure, such as offering wealthy clients access to bitcoin. funds.
More recently, that includes spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on its E*Trade platform, and this month the bank even filed to launch its own spot bitcoin ETF.
Increased participation was held back by regulatory uncertainty and concerns around custody, compliance and market structure. That stance has begun to change, and Morgan Stanley has now outlined a more defined digital asset strategy, with efforts spanning trading, asset management and infrastructure.
Oldenburg said the bank is preparing to support trading of tokenized stocks on its alternative trading system.
“One of the things we are planning for the second half of 2026 is to change our cross-track trajectory… to support tokenized stocks later this year,” he said. The platform already handles stocks, ETFs and American depositary receipts (ADRs), which it described as a natural base for expansion.
Within the enterprise, the transition requires reworking core systems. “We are having to relearn what legacy infrastructure, pipes and plumbing look like,” Oldenburg said, noting the challenge of updating decades-old financial architecture to support faster settlement and continued trading.
It also highlighted the gap between crypto startups and large institutions.
“There are a lot of other connectivity points that we need to connect around it,” he said, noting that founders often underestimate how complex banking systems are.
Still, areas like stablecoins are gaining traction as a way to move money faster and at a lower cost than traditional systems.
However, adoption depends on coordination across the financial system. “We cannot modernize alone,” Oldenburg said. “This is an incredibly complex, integrated global network.”
Despite weak token prices, he said activity continues to increase. “We’re really in the early stages,” Oldenburg said, noting that Wall Street’s deeper integration with cryptocurrencies may be gradual, but it is underway.
