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charles schwab announced its long-awaited cryptocurrency investment product on Thursday. Bitcoin and ether As the gap between traditional finance and digital assets narrows, trading becomes more accessible to customers.
This move puts brokerages in direct competition with companies such as: robin hoodwhich serves a relatively young clientele and also offers investments in stocks and cryptocurrencies (and now also offers other financial services).
Schwab, one of the world’s largest brokerages with over $11 trillion in client assets, has been vocal about its clients’ interest in crypto investing for months. The product, called Schwab Crypto, is expected to be available in the coming weeks.
“What we’ve heard from a lot of our customers is that they have 98% of their wealth here at Schwab, and they might have 1% or 2% in some digital native company to hold their crypto. They really want to bring it back to Schwab because they trust us (and) they want to leave it with their other assets,” CEO Rick Wurster said on CNBC’s “Money Movers” last July.
This move further blurs the lines between the traditional financial industry and the growing world of crypto assets and digital finance. Schwab is the latest example of increasing acceptance of cryptocurrencies by major banks, asset managers and brokers. Big banks, asset managers, and brokers may have been waiting on the sidelines for years to start offering cryptocurrencies, but given the Trump administration’s friendly regulatory stance toward the new industry, they may feel like they can now do so. The past few days morgan stanley We have launched a spot Bitcoin ETF. Morgan Stanley Bitcoin Trust (MSBT)and goldman sachs We have applied to launch a Bitcoin Income ETF.
Fidelity InvestmentsThe company, Schwab’s biggest rival and one of the earliest legacy financial companies to get into the crypto game (which started as early as 2013), launched a crypto trading app in 2023. Fidelity also became the first retirement plan provider to allow investors to put Bitcoin into their 401(k) in 2022, and Fidelity Charities has been accepting crypto donations since 2015.
Meanwhile, native cryptocurrency exchanges Coinbase and Kraken are also expanding into the stock market. Coinbase began rolling out commission-free stock trading in January, and Kraken followed suit just this week.
Schwab also offers commission-free trading of stocks, but charges a 0.75% commission on each cryptocurrency trade. By comparison, Fidelity Crypto charges a 1% fee on buy and sell transactions, Robinhood charges between 0.03% and 0.95%, and Coinbase’s fees vary by level but can be up to 4% for retail customers.
Schwab stock fell 5% on Thursday, weighed down by weak first-quarter sales reported in the morning.
