Morgan Stanley Taps Sheena Shah to Lead New Crypto Research Team

Morgan Stanley said Sheena Shah will lead a new team that researches cryptocurrencies as Wall Street continues its push into digital assets.

Shah will be lead analyst and her team will research cryptocurrencies’ impact on both equities and fixed income worldwide, according to a memo to staff seen by Bloomberg. She’ll be based in London and report globally to James Faucette and locally to Adam Wood, who lead Morgan Stanley’s fintech and payments research teams in the U.S. and Europe, respectively.

“The launch of dedicated crypto research is in recognition of the growing significance of crypto currencies and other digital assets in global markets,” Morgan Stanley’s David Adelman, Juliet Estridge and Vishy Tirupattur said in the memo.

The move comes as the country’s biggest banks increasingly look for ways to expand into the wild world of cryptocurrencies.Bank of America Corp. created a cryptocurrencies research team of its own earlier this year, while JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have begun offering crypto-futures trading.

Shah is currently head of Group of 10 foreign-exchange strategy for Europe, and has already contributed to research Morgan Stanley has done on cryptocurrencies so far, according to the memo.