Charles Schwab spent years watching the crypto market from the sidelines. In 2019, the firm called crypto "purely speculative." By 2025, its CEO said Schwab clients held more than 20% of all crypto ETFs industrywide.
Now the firm is jumping in.
Schwab is launching a new Schwab Crypto account that lets clients buy and sell bitcoin and ether alongside their traditional investments. The waitlist is already open.
CEO Rick Wurster told Barron's the rollout would start with a limited Q2 launch - internal testing with employees first, then a small group of clients, then wider access in the second half of the year.
The scale is what matters here. Schwab manages $11.9 trillion in client assets across 46 million accounts. That's a pool of investors that could meaningfully move crypto demand.
There are limits at launch. Schwab won't accept crypto deposits from external wallets or exchanges. Clients can't transfer existing holdings in - they can only buy and sell within Schwab.
Residents in states with strict crypto rules - like New York and Louisiana - won't be eligible during the initial rollout.
Schwab already lets clients buy crypto ETFs and trade bitcoin futures. It also launched the Schwab Crypto Thematic Index ETF, which tracks companies tied to the digital asset space. Direct trading is the next step.
Schwab isn't alone. Morgan Stanley is preparing to offer bitcoin, ether, and solana trading through its E*Trade platform.
EDX Markets - a crypto exchange Schwab helped back - is separately applying for a national bank charter.
The shift from "crypto is speculative" to "here's your crypto account" took Schwab less than seven years. The race to bring crypto to mainstream brokerage clients is now wide open.
