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Charles Schwab enters the retail crypto market: $12 trillion giant steps in—are leading exchanges panicking?‌‌‌‌‌‌

On April 16, Charles Schwab entered the retail crypto market and officially announced the launch of Schwab Crypto spot trading services, supporting direct trading of Bitcoin and Ethereum. In the coming weeks, it will open the service in phases to retail clients. The announcement came suddenly, but it wasn’t unexpected—Charles Schwab’s CEO had said as early as 2025: “We will compete with Cbase.”

As of the end of February 2026, the client assets managed by Charles Schwab totaled as much as $12.22 trillion, with 38.9 million active brokerage accounts. $12 trillion—what does that even mean? It exceeds the total combined market capitalization of all publicly listed crypto companies in the U.S., and is more than 15 times Cbase’s total market value. For Cbase, which has long dominated the U.S. retail crypto market, this trillion-dollar rival is indeed something that deserves serious attention.

Charles Schwab has nearly 39 million active brokerage accounts and $12.22 trillion in client assets. This figure far surpasses the combined market value of all U.S.-listed crypto companies.

Charles Schwab’s entry into the retail crypto market: scale itself isn’t a weapon, but when scale is multiplied by convenience, it becomes a lethal weapon.

In the past, when Charles Schwab customers wanted to buy cryptocurrencies, the process was like this: log in to Schwab → withdraw → transfer to Cbase → open an account → trade. Every step was an opportunity for “user drop-off.” Now, on the same interface—stocks, ETFs, crypto assets—one-click switching. Internally, Charles Schwab estimates that its clients already hold about 20% of spot crypto ETF shares. This means the demand is already there—what’s missing is just an entry point.

Charles Schwab’s move into the retail crypto market is protected most by the trust brought by its brand.

Charles Schwab’s crypto assets are held in custody by its banking subsidiary under a custody model, and trade execution is carried out by Paxos, a trust company regulated by the federal government. For older traditional investors, the four words “bank custody” are more convincing than any cold-wallet promotion from any crypto exchange.

Charles Schwab’s customer survey shows that when investors choose a crypto trading platform, the top three factors they care most about are: transparent pricing, brand reputation, and asset security. We believe these are precisely the shortcomings that native crypto exchanges such as Cbase have long been facing.

There have been plenty of recent positive developments: on April 8, Morgan Stanley launched a spot Bitcoin ETF (MSBT), with inflows of $30.6 million on its first day after listing. In February 2026, Robinhod’s crypto trading volume reached $25 billion, up 74% year over year. Fidelity launched the digital dollar stablecoin FIDD. This may also be directly related to the recent rise in coin prices, but in any case, traditional financial markets are gradually moving into the crypto market. What they bring is not only staggering wealth and huge numbers of users, but also the respect and courtesies that traditional finance shows toward the coin world. In the view of Little Lucky God, all signs suggest that this current bear market is only temporary, and Bitcoin’s future is still as vast as the stars and the sea!$BTC $GT $ETH