Charles Schwab on Thursday introduced its long-awaited crypto investing product, making bitcoin and ether trading available to clients as the gap between traditional finance and digital assets narrows.
The move places the brokerage in direct competition with companies like Robinhood, which serves a comparatively younger clientele and also offers stock and crypto investing (as well as an array of other financial services now).
Schwab, one of the largest brokerages in the world with more than $11 trillion in client assets, has been vocal for months about its clients’ interest in crypto investing. The offering, called Schwab Crypto, will be available in the coming weeks.
“What we hear from many of our clients is that they have 98% of their wealth here at Schwab and they might hold a percent or 2% at some digital native firm to hold their crypto, and they really want to bring it back to Schwab because they trust us [and] they want it to sit alongside their other assets,” CEO Rick Wurster told CNBC’s “Money Movers” last July.
The move further blurs the line between the traditional financial industry and the growing world of crypto assets and digital finance. Schwab is the latest example of increasing crypto acceptance by major banks, asset managers, and brokers – which may have spent years waiting on the sidelines to launch crypto offerings and feel better able to do so given the Trump administration’s friendly regulatory stance toward the new industry. In recent days, Morgan Stanley launched a spot bitcoin ETF, the Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT), and Goldman Sachs filed to launch a bitcoin income ETF.
