Close-up of sign with logo at Charles Schwab financial adviser branch in Pleasanton, California, March 26, 2018. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
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Bitcoin is trading near $78,100 and ether around $2,320 on Wednesday as Charles Schwab begins phasing in direct spot trading of both coins inside a brokerage platform that already holds $11.9 trillion in client assets.
The rollout, first detailed publicly on April 16 by Nate Geraci, host of the ETF Prime podcast, is the most significant Wall Street on-ramp for retail crypto since the spot bitcoin ETFs cleared the SEC two years ago. It also arrives at a 75-basis-point price tag that has Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst advising most clients to keep buying ETFs instead.
“Schwab announces spot crypto trading will begin rolling out in the coming weeks,” Geraci posted on X on April 16, citing Schwab’s launch notice. “Direct trading in btc & eth -Can view crypto holdings alongside tradfi investments -Pricing = 75bps on dollar value of each trade Plans to add addn’l crypto assets as well.”
That single post drew roughly 95,000 views, per X’s own metrics, and set the frame that has defined the week of reaction on crypto X.
‘Not a product launch’
P2P.org, an institutional staking firm, described Schwab’s entry in terms that framed the stakes for advisors. “This is not a product launch. It is a distribution event,” the firm’s account wrote on April 21. “Schwab’s advisor network can now include digital assets in client portfolios using the same custody, reporting, and compliance infrastructure.”
The Bitcoin Archive podcast, writing on April 16, echoed the scale argument. “CHARLES SCHWAB is launching direct Bitcoin and Ethereum trading. The $9.5 trillion asset manager is moving to compete with Robinhood. The wall of money is getting bigger.” (Schwab’s own Q4 2025 disclosures put the figure at $11.9 trillion.)
Schwab reported 38.5 million active brokerage accounts in its Q4 2025 earnings release. Direct spot crypto now sits alongside stocks and bonds in the same dashboard those clients already use. Custody runs through Charles Schwab Premier Bank, with execution handled by Paxos. Crypto held through Schwab is not covered by FDIC deposit insurance or SIPC protection.
The Robinhood-Coinbase squeeze
Anthony Pompliano, the investor who chairs ProCap Financial and has published research on Robinhood-Schwab competitive dynamics, framed the launch as a defensive reaction rather than a land grab.
“Robinhood is growing 2x faster than Charles Schwab in every major metric,” he wrote on X on April 18. “This is why the incumbent brokerages are adopting crypto, prediction markets, and tokenization. Competition dictates strategy sometimes.”
Tony Edward, host of the Thinking Crypto podcast, whose channel carries sponsorships from native-crypto firms including iTrustCapital, BitGo and Trezor, told viewers in an April 18 video that the significance runs further than Robinhood. Schwab, he argued, brings “white glove” 24/7 advisor support to a segment of retail investors that pure crypto exchanges have struggled to win, and he predicted that Coinbase and Kraken would have to “up their game” to compete with integrated brokerage dashboards.
The fee problem
Not everyone is impressed. Eric Balchunas, Bloomberg’s senior ETF analyst, told his 200,000-plus followers that the 75-basis-point fee makes Schwab’s direct offering a worse deal than spot bitcoin ETFs for most clients.
“Big news. Def better deal than most crypto exchanges for newbies but IMO it’s tough sell vs ETFs (which are 2bps to buy vs 75bps for Schwab direct),” Balchunas posted on April 16. “Bottom line: if you buy btc one time and one time only and plan to hold 5+ yrs then direct is cheaper. Otherwise ETFs for the win all day long.”
Advisors replying to Balchunas agreed. “That is expensive,” Ken Nuttall, a CFP who replied publicly under @KenNuttallFP, wrote on April 16. “Guess they are going after the Coinbase people as opposed to advisors. I will stick with ETFs.”
Balchunas separately noted on April 20 that spot bitcoin ETFs have now rebuilt more than $1 billion of year-to-date net inflows and sit roughly $5 billion away from a new lifetime cumulative high, after peaking at $62.8 billion in early 2025. That is the benchmark Schwab’s direct offering has to beat to matter at scale.
What to watch
The open questions are simple. Whether Schwab allows crypto withdrawals to self-custody will decide how many long-term holders actually route through the platform rather than through ETFs. Whether the phased rollout expands past bitcoin and ether, as Geraci’s April 16 note suggested, will decide whether Schwab becomes a real third channel alongside ETFs and native exchanges.
“Competition dictates strategy sometimes,” Pompliano wrote. By the time Schwab’s next earnings call arrives in July, the market will know whether the $11.9 trillion brokerage has actually pulled flows into bitcoin and ether, delivering a 2019-style Schwab moment for the native exchanges, or whether Balchunas is right that ETFs for the win still holds all day long.