Morgan Stanley Rumored to Seek Bithumb Acquisition

​US investment banking giant Morgan Stanley is having a negotiation with Bident, the largest shareholder of the top cryptocurrency exchange in Korea, Bithumb, for the acquisition of the exchange, according to Korean media.

This news follows the investment bank's announcement to offer its wealth management clients access to bitcoin funds. Morgan Stanley is the first big bank in the US to provide customers with funds that that enable ownership of bitcoin. For the year ending December 31, 2020, the US investment bank posted $13.6 billion net revenues​. This figure was $10.9 billion in the year ending December 31, 2019.

Bithumb is a Top 10 globally ranked digital assets platform, according to CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko, and one of the fastest growing exchanges since 2019. Last year, the Korean exchange had embarked on a plan to conduct an initial public offering (IPO) more than once.