Charles Schwab Launches Spot Bitcoin and Ethereum Trading in Phased Rollout

The brokerage giant begins rolling out Schwab Crypto to its 39 million clients, pricing trades at 75 basis points with Paxos handling custody.

Charles Schwab began rolling out direct spot trading for bitcoin and ethereum on Thursday, opening its Schwab Crypto platform to clients for the first time. The service operates through Charles Schwab Premier Bank, SSB, with Paxos serving as the regulated custody and trade execution partner.

Trading is priced at 75 basis points per transaction. The initial offering is limited to bitcoin and ether in most U.S. states, with New York and Louisiana excluded at launch. 

Schwab’s entry puts it in direct competition with Robinhood and Coinbase, both of which have served retail crypto investors for years. With the product, Schwab’s users will be able to hold their crypto alongside equities, fixed income, and ETFs inside a single brokerage account view.

This story is an excerpt from the Unchained Daily newsletter.

Schwab’s manages roughly $11.8 trillion in client assets, giving it one of the largest built-in distribution bases of any firm entering the space. Regulatory changes helped clear the path: the SEC rescinded Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 in January 2025, and the OCC reaffirmed in March 2025 that crypto custody is permissible for national banks.

The launch coincided with Schwab’s Q1 2026 earnings, which showed revenue of $6.48 billion, up 16% year over year but marginally short of the $6.50 billion analyst consensus. Schwab added 1.3 million new brokerage accounts in the quarter. Despite the solid operating results, shares fell roughly 8% on the day. Wurster told analysts the company would “likely” offer prediction markets tied to financial events at some point, while explicitly ruling out sports or politics.

The launch is part of a broader wave of traditional finance institutions entering crypto. Morgan Stanley recently launched a spot bitcoin ETF, and Goldman Sachs filed to launch a bitcoin income ETF.