Charles Schwab opened spot cryptocurrency trading to its brokerage clients on April 17, 2026, according to an announcement relayed by WuBlockchain. The service, branded Schwab Crypto, launched with direct trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum, with additional assets to follow later in the year.
As of April 17, 2026, Bitcoin trades at $74,965 and Ethereum at $2,344, per CoinMarketCap. Neither moved meaningfully on the announcement, likely because institutional flows into US spot ETFs have been the dominant price driver for most of 2026 and Schwab's entry was telegraphed in its Q4 2025 earnings call.
Why the largest US broker waited three years
Schwab has $9.8 trillion in client assets and roughly 36 million brokerage accounts. Giving that client base a spot on-ramp is a different scale of distribution than anything the crypto industry has absorbed before. Fidelity opened retail spot crypto trading in late 2022. Robinhood has offered spot since 2018. Interactive Brokers rolled out spot BTC and ETH in 2021. Schwab watched all of them pick up flow before deciding to move.
Part of the delay was regulatory. Under the prior SEC, custody was the sticking point, with SAB 121 forcing broker-dealers holding crypto to treat it as an on-balance-sheet liability. The repeal of SAB 121 in January 2025, followed by the SEC's broader softening on broker-dealer crypto custody, cleared the path. Schwab's CEO Rick Wurster told analysts in early 2025 that the firm was waiting for "regulatory clarity that lets us build this the Schwab way" rather than bolting on a third-party brokerage like Fidelity's FDX setup.
The "Schwab way" appears to mean direct custody and direct execution, with crypto sitting next to equities, ETFs, and mutual funds inside the same account view. Users will not need to fund a separate wallet or move money to an exchange.
What launches today, and what does not
The initial product supports spot BTC and ETH only. Schwab has signaled that Solana, XRP, and a handful of large-cap assets will follow, though no firm date has been shared publicly. Futures, margin, staking, and self-custody transfers are not part of the initial launch. A withdraw-to-wallet feature is reportedly on the roadmap but not live on day one.
For clients who already hold spot Bitcoin ETFs like IBIT or FBTC in their Schwab accounts, the obvious question is whether to move into spot. Spot avoids the ETF expense ratio but introduces custody considerations and a different tax treatment on disposal. Schwab has published a side-by-side comparison on its research site, stopping short of recommending either.
Fidelity, Robinhood, and the last holdout
Three of the four largest US retail brokers now offer spot crypto. Fidelity launched in November 2022. Robinhood has offered spot since 2018 and is in the process of rolling out self-custody through its Robinhood Wallet. Interactive Brokers added BTC, ETH, LTC, and BCH in September 2021.
The single major holdout is Vanguard, which as of this writing still blocks its brokerage clients from even purchasing spot crypto ETFs. Vanguard's position has been the most principled anti-crypto stance among large US asset managers, and CEO Salim Ramji, who joined from BlackRock in mid-2024, has not reversed it. Schwab's launch puts additional pressure on Vanguard, though the firm's cooperative ownership structure and passive investing thesis make it the least likely to move.
What this means for crypto cards and spending
For users of self-custody crypto cards and exchange-linked cards, Schwab's launch mostly changes the funnel at the top of the stack. A client who previously had to move fiat from Schwab to Coinbase to fund a spend account can now buy BTC or ETH inside Schwab and, once on-chain transfers are enabled, move it directly to MetaMask, Ledger, or a cashback-paying card like Crypto Dot Com.
Schwab's retail client base skews older, higher-net-worth, and US-based. That is a profile that matches well with the US crypto card market, where most active users hold at least one custodial exchange account. If even 2% of Schwab's 36 million accounts touch crypto in the first year, that is 720,000 new on-chain participants. Whether that flow reaches spend rails depends entirely on whether Schwab enables withdraw-to-wallet, which remains the biggest open question.
Overview
Charles Schwab turned on spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading for its 36 million brokerage accounts on April 17, 2026, three years after Fidelity opened the same door. The launch was enabled by the repeal of SAB 121 and the SEC's softer stance on broker-dealer crypto custody. Vanguard is now the only large US retail broker still blocking spot crypto. The bigger question for the crypto ecosystem is whether Schwab enables withdraw-to-wallet, which would turn its brokerage base into a meaningful on-ramp for self-custody and crypto card spending.
