Charles Schwab, a heavyweight in the U.S. brokerage scene, plans to roll out spot cryptocurrency trading for retail clients in the coming weeks. The service will begin with Bitcoin and Ether, accessed through a dedicated crypto account linked to Schwab’s core brokerage platform, with custody handled by Schwab’s banking unit and trade execution facilitated through Paxos, the federally regulated trust company.

Schwab’s announcement places the firm among several traditional financial players expanding regulated crypto access for everyday investors. The company reported $12.22 trillion in total client assets as of February 2026, underscoring the scale it brings to any new crypto offering. Schwab already provides exposure to crypto through exchange-traded products, futures, and funds, and internal estimates suggest its clients collectively hold roughly 20% of spot crypto ETFs. The phased rollout will begin for eligible U.S. retail clients, with New York and Louisiana residents initially excluded.

Key takeaways

• Schwab will offer spot trading for Bitcoin and Ether to retail clients, via a separate crypto account linked to its brokerage platform, with custody by Schwab Bank and Paxos handling execution.
• The initial trading fee is 75 basis points per transaction, placing Schwab’s pricing above some U.S. crypto exchanges but on par with others for lower-volume traders.
• The service will be launched in phases over the coming weeks and will not be available to residents of New York and Louisiana at the outset.
• Schwab’s move extends its crypto footprint beyond ETFs, futures, and funds, reflecting a broader push by traditional finance into regulated crypto products and services.

Schwab’s custody model and how the service will work

Under Schwab’s plan, clients will access spot crypto trading through a distinct crypto account that sits alongside their regular brokerage activities. Assets will be held by Schwab’s banking subsidiary, adopting a custodial framework designed to integrate crypto assets into Schwab’s existing risk and compliance protocols. Execution will be provided via Paxos, a regulated trust company that has become a common partner for traditional institutions seeking compliant crypto trading rails. The design aims to blend crypto accessibility with the familiar Schwab experience—trading and viewing crypto alongside stocks and other assets across Schwab’s web, mobile, and Thinkorswim platforms.

The focus on custody and a trusted execution partner signals Schwab’s intent to reassure risk-conscious investors who have long viewed crypto as a separate, sometimes opaque corner of markets. By using a traditional banking arm for custody, Schwab aligns crypto holdings with its established custody standards and regulatory expectations, potentially reducing counterparty risk from a user perspective. However, the need to route trades through Paxos and vault assets in a bank-style custody structure also indicates a performance and settlement regime that may differ from highly automated, direct-exchange paths often seen in other fintech-friendly models.

Pricing, competition and pathway to broader access

From launch, Schwab’s spot-trading fee stands at 75 basis points per trade (0.75%). That rate sits higher than many crypto exchanges that have pitched low, volume-based pricing—Kraken’s public fee schedule, for example, starts around 0.25% to 0.40% and declines with higher trade volumes. By contrast, Schwab’s fee is broadly aligned with Coinbase’s lower-volume tier, which ranges from roughly 0.40% to 0.60%. The implication for traders is a decision point between the convenience and integrated experience Schwab offers and the typically cheaper on-exchange fees found on stand-alone crypto venues.

Schwab’s decision to set a higher introductory fee may reflect the value proposition of its custodial framework and the seamless integration with existing Schwab accounts. It also suggests a broader strategy: to render crypto trading part of a single, regulated, institution-backed suite of financial services rather than a separate crypto-only infrastructure. Investors will be watching how Schwab balances custody costs, regulatory compliance, and user experience as it expands beyond BTC and ETH to additional digital assets.

Industry context: incumbents expanding into crypto, while crypto-native firms push into traditional markets

Schwab’s move aligns with a wider industry trend of traditional financial firms embracing crypto as a regulated, investable asset class. In April, Morgan Stanley launched a spot Bitcoin ETF (MSBT) that drew $30.6 million in inflows on its first day of NYSE Arca trading, with total net assets reported around $87.6 million as of mid-April. The same month, Goldman Sachs signaled intent to offer a Bitcoin-linked ETF designed to generate income through options strategies, providing indirect exposure to Bitcoin while aiming to dampen volatility. These developments illustrate a bifurcated market where established banks seek regulated, structurally sound products for mainstream investors, while crypto-native platforms pursue hybrid offerings that bridge traditional markets and digital assets.

Meanwhile, on the crypto-native side, firms are expanding into traditional asset spaces in various ways. Coinbase began enabling trading for equities and ETFs on its platform, while Kraken explored tokenized equity perpetual futures, offering leveraged exposure to US stocks and other traditional assets. These moves reflect a broader experimentation with tokenized and digitized representations of conventional financial instruments, even as the regulatory backdrop continues to evolve for both fiat-backed and crypto-native vehicles.

Schwab’s announcement underscores a broader question for investors and builders: how far can regulated, mainstream financial infrastructure extend crypto access without compromising the guardrails that institutional players demand? The emphasis on custody, trust, and integrated account workflows suggests a future where crypto sits alongside traditional assets in standard brokerage environments, rather than existing as a niche appendage.

What this means for markets and readers

For Schwab’s clients, the introduction of spot crypto trading could simplify access to digital assets and consolidate reporting, tax documents, and custody within a single account framework. For the broader market, the move reinforces the trend of mainstream financial firms integrating crypto into their core product lines, which could spur greater investor participation and potentially shift liquidity and trading patterns as more participants gain regulated exposure. Yet, the phased rollout and geographic exclusions highlight that regulatory and state-level constraints remain a meaningful limiter on rapid, universal adoption.

As the rollout progresses, observers will be watching several key questions: How quickly will Schwab add other digital assets beyond BTC and ETH? Will the custody and settlement flow prove resilient at scale under higher-volume demand? And how will fee structures evolve as competition increases and the regulatory environment solidifies around crypto custody and market access?

With traditional finance expanding its footprint in crypto and crypto-native firms continuing to probe traditional markets, the next 12 to 18 months could reveal a more integrated, regulated, and widely accessible crypto trading landscape for ordinary investors. Market participants should keep an eye on regulatory developments, custody risk management, and the pace at which other legacy institutions emulate Schwab’s approach—or chart out alternative paths for their clients.

Readers should monitor Schwab’s rollout cadence, the list of supported assets, and any updates to access in previously restricted states. The broader takeaway is clear: mainstream financial institutions are continuing to incorporate crypto into conventional investing, signaling both opportunities and new risk considerations for users and builders alike.

BitTorrent Chain has upgraded the BTTC Bridge record page with dual views, richer filters and clearer tags so users can track incoming, outgoing and cross-chain flows faster.

BitTorrent Chain has rolled out a functional upgrade to the BTTC Bridge transaction record page, aiming to give cross-chain users a clearer view of where their funds are and where they are going. According to the project’s official update, the new interface is now live and is designed to make tracking deposits, withdrawals and cross-chain moves “more efficient and transparent” for everyday users.

The refreshed page introduces a dual-view mode that splits activity into “All Records” and “In Progress,” allowing people who regularly move assets between BTTC, Ethereum, Tron and BNB Chain to quickly distinguish between completed and pending transfers. The team has also added a multi-dimensional filtering tool that lets users combine transaction status, operation type and custom date ranges in a single query, cutting down the time it takes to locate a specific bridge event.

As part of the same upgrade, BTTC says the bridge page now features stronger, dedicated markers for incoming, outgoing and cross-chain activities, visually flagging the direction and nature of each transaction. The goal, according to the team, is to help users “quickly locate the flow of funds,” a recurring pain point for less technical participants navigating multi-chain asset movements.

The latest tweak builds on a broader interface overhaul completed in late March, when BTTC redesigned the bridge to incorporate user feedback and streamline the overall flow. That earlier upgrade allowed users to send assets from BTTC addresses back to Ethereum without paying extra bridge fees beyond standard gas costs, while keeping the process fully decentralized and ensuring that private keys and asset details stay out of third-party hands.

BitTorrent Chain positions BTTC as a cross-chain layer connecting networks such as Tron, Ethereum and BNB Chain using a lock‑and‑mint bridge model, with the bridge itself sitting at the heart of that interoperability push. Its recent 2.0 mainnet upgrade to a proof‑of‑stake design, highlighted in BitTorrent’s own roadmap, was pitched as a way to boost throughput and make cross-chain transfers more reliable as volumes grow.

In previous crypto.news coverage of exchange and wallet UX improvements, reporters have noted that clearer transaction histories and better labeling can directly reduce support tickets, user errors and perceived security risks in cross-chain systems. BTTC’s latest bridge record upgrade moves in that same direction, giving power users more granular filters while offering newcomers a cleaner, less intimidating window into their on-chain activity.

• Donor: Cantor Fitzgerald committed $10 million to Fellowship PAC, disclosed in February FEC filings.
• Total raised: Wednesday’s FEC filing revealed $11 million in total contributions, including donations from other sources alongside Cantor’s $10 million.
• PAC leadership: Fellowship PAC is chaired by Jesse Spiro, Tether’s U.S. head of government affairs, and was established in 2025.
• Anchorage Digital: The digital asset bank separately contributed $1 million to Fellowship PAC.
• Spending to date: Fellowship has deployed $3 million on advocacy advertising and $1.5 million backing three Republican candidates, including Kentucky Senate candidate Nate Morris and Georgia Representative Clay Fuller.
• Cantor-Tether history: Cantor Fitzgerald has served as custodian for Tether’s reserve assets since 2021, making this donation an extension of an already entrenched institutional relationship.
• Political context: Fellowship PAC secured over $100 million in funding commitments ahead of the prior election cycle, positioning itself alongside rivals Fairshake and Defend American Jobs.
• Watch: FEC filings through 2025 and 2026 for additional commitments toward Fellowship’s $100 million goal and candidate endorsement patterns ahead of pivotal congressional sessions on crypto regulation.

The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission is leaning into artificial intelligence and automation as it faces massive new oversight responsibilities, according to congressional testimony from Chairman Mike Selig, even as his agency’s workforce has declined significantly under the administration of President Donald Trump.

About a quarter of the CFTC’s staff has left since 2025, under Trump’s demands that the federal workforce be cut significantly, according to agency records. But the CFTC is also being called upon to regulate new and rapidly growing arenas for cryptocurrency and the prediction markets.

“Tools such as AI are going to be very helpful in surveilling and bringing the investigations, and we’re incorporating that into various workflows,” Selig told lawmakers of the House Agriculture Committee at a Thursday hearing, citing widespread use of Microsoft’s Copilot AI tool as one productivity aid. When asked about the staff declines at his agency, Selig said, “we are running more efficiently and effectively.”

“We’re putting a lot on your plate with digital assets, and we’re obviously going down this path with prediction markets,” noted committee Chairman Glenn “GT” Thompson. He sought an assurance from the CFTC chief that if he finds himself “in a situation where you know the need for additional qualified staff emerges” that he’ll ask the panel for help.

“Absolutely,” Selig responded.

He asserted that proper enforcement of the markets is a “top priority” of his, though the CFTC budget request for next year asked for only three more enforcement staff to make 108 people — still about 23% shy of the 140 the division had in 2025.

The Digital Asset Market Clarity Act that the Senate continues to work on would elevate the CFTC into a central role over non-securities crypto trading, which would include transactions in leading assets such as bitcoin BTC$74,762.35 and Ethereum’s ether (ETH). The agency is also claiming a dominant legal jurisdiction over the prediction markets such as at leading firms Polymarket and Kalshi, which are rocketing from levels measured in the millions of dollars a year ago to multiple billions now.

Selig’s Democratic predecessor, former Chairman Rostin Behnam, had routinely argued that the agency would need more people to oversee crypto and didn’t have the resources to police the world as prediction markets spread in depth and in a virtually unlimited breadth of contract topics. During Selig’s brief tenure, the prediction markets have erupted in accusations of insider trading, a few of which have been addressed by the firms themselves. But the markets have drawn heavy scrutiny on certain trades around U.S. military actions and government statements that suggest small numbers of anonymous traders made significant money on correct bets, suggesting the potential for insider trading from people with government insight.

The chairman acknowledged “numerous investigations ongoing” in prediction markets, though he wouldn’t quantify a number or discuss their focus. He said the regulated platforms are the first line of defense against insider trading, fraud and market manipulation in the hundreds of new markets (binary event questions) that emerge every day on the platforms, while the CFTC itself is a second line of defense.

“We regularly reject contracts,” Selig noted. “We’re actively reviewing what’s out there,” he said, adding that his agency has a “zero tolerance” policy for illicit market activity.

“Anyone who engages in that behavior will face the full force of the law,” he said.

But Representative Angie Craig, the committee’s top Democrat, argued that “the agency’s workforce is stretched too thin,” especially considering the agency’s role as the “primary regulator of two of the fastest growing and most volatile markets.”

“We must give the CFTC the staff, the funding and the clear statutory authority it needs to do its job,” Craig said.

The personnel declines at the regulator includes the commission itself, which is supposed to have five members under the law — including two commissioners from the minority party — but which has been left by the White House as a solitary posting of Selig. The chairman was questioned repeatedly about that during the Thursday oversight hearing, including whether he’d proceed with major rules as a one-person commission.

“We cannot for the sake of the American people slow down our rulemaking,” he said, suggesting he’ll move alone on new regulations. The CFTC is pursuing a preliminary rule process to set up guardrails for U.S. prediction markets, and Selig has also pushed policy initiatives in crypto.

Read More: CFTC sues Illinois, Arizona, Connecticut over states’ sports prediction market efforts