Charles Schwab launches spot crypto trading for retail clients — 35 million accounts now have direct BTC and ETH access!

Charles Schwab, the Westlake, Texas-based brokerage managing roughly $12 trillion in client assets, has begun rolling out spot cryptocurrency trading for retail customers in the U.S. An initial group of clients can now trade bitcoin and ether directly on the Schwab Crypto platform, the company confirmed on X Tuesday — hitting the first-half 2026 window CEO Rick Wurster flagged last month.

The scale of this move is what sets it apart from prior TradFi crypto experiments. Schwab's approximately 35 million clients can now access BTC and ETH inside an interface they already trust, without registering on a standalone crypto exchange. The firm already offered crypto exposure through ETFs and futures, but direct spot trading is a different category of commitment — it means custody, execution, and settlement infrastructure built for the mainstream.

For crypto adoption broadly, a $12 trillion…