Charles Schwab Launches Spot BTC and ETH Trading at 75 Basis Points

Charles Schwab has begun rolling out direct spot bitcoin and ethereum trading to retail brokerage clients through a new platform called Schwab Crypto, marking the firm's first entry into direct cryptocurrency trading for its millions of U.S. customers.

The rollout is phased, meaning not all clients gain access simultaneously over the coming weeks. Trading fees are fixed at 75 basis points (0.75%) per transaction. Paxos, the OCC-regulated digital asset infrastructure firm, serves as custodian and back-end partner. At launch, only bitcoin and ethereum are supported.

The 75 basis point fee structure deserves scrutiny. Crypto-native exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken typically charge between 10 and 50 basis points for comparable spot trades, with competitive maker-taker platforms going lower. Schwab is pricing for convenience over cost efficiency, betting that existing brokerage clients will accept a premium to avoid opening a separate crypto account. That bet may well pay off. Schwab reported 35.6 million active brokerage accounts as of early 2025, a built-in distribution channel no crypto-native exchange can replicate overnight. For casual investors who already hold stocks and ETFs with Schwab, the friction of onboarding to Coinbase may outweigh a few extra basis points in fees.

The choice of Paxos as custodian signals a deliberate compliance posture. Paxos holds a national trust charter from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, a regulatory standing few crypto custodians can match. That structure should satisfy Schwab's compliance requirements and provides clients with a cleaner custody chain than many retail crypto platforms have historically offered. The initial BTC-and-ETH-only scope reflects the same conservatism: both assets have spot ETFs approved by the SEC and carry more regulatory clarity than the broader altcoin market.

Schwab's entry follows a broader pattern of traditional finance firms deepening their crypto exposure. Fidelity launched spot bitcoin ETF access in 2024 and has offered bitcoin custody through Fidelity Digital Assets since 2018. Robinhood has offered crypto trading since 2018 and reported crypto revenues of $252 million in Q1 2025, up 100% year-over-year. The difference with Schwab Crypto is the client demographic. Schwab's base skews older and wealthier than Robinhood's, meaning this rollout could channel a different pool of capital into spot crypto markets. Whether that translates into meaningful volume depends on how aggressively Schwab promotes the product and whether it expands the asset list beyond BTC and ETH.

The broader implication is structural. When a firm with Schwab's scale and regulatory conservatism integrates spot crypto trading into a standard brokerage account, it normalizes bitcoin and ethereum as portfolio assets alongside equities and bonds. That normalization carries compounding effects: it reduces the psychological barrier for retail investors hesitant to open a dedicated crypto account, adds another source of spot demand that feeds directly into market prices, and pressures other major brokerages to follow. Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch have both explored crypto product expansions in recent years. Schwab's move raises the competitive stakes. The phased rollout and limited asset selection suggest a deliberate, conservative first step rather than a full commitment, but the direction is unambiguous. Traditional finance is no longer treating crypto as a fringe asset class, and Schwab Crypto is the latest proof of that shift.