Charles Schwab to Offer Bitcoin and Ethereum to 39 Million Clients, Minus Familiar Safeguards

Charles Schwab says it will sell Bitcoin and Ethereum directly to its 39 million brokerage clients. The assets will sit alongside stocks, ETFs, and retirement holdings inside the same app, under the same brand, a single click away from the S&P 500 index fund sitting in a customer's IRA. What makes this arrangement worth examining is the mismatch it creates. Crypto assets will arrive inside one of the most familiar and trusted environments in American finance, yet they carry a very different set of protections from what customers have come to expect there. Schwab's own disclosures state the situation plainly. The cryptocurrencies sold on its platform are not deposits. They are not FDIC-insured, not SIPC-protected, and not backed by any central bank. They carry the risk of total loss of principal. That gap, between how crypto will feel to a Schwab customer and what it actually is under the hood, is the most consequential detail here. It is also the clearest illustration yet of how crypto is being absorbed into mainstream American finance. Charles Schwab's crypto rollout, and what it changes in practice The product, called Schwab Crypto, will begin a phased launch in the coming weeks. At launch, it will support only two assets: Bitcoin and Ethereum, which together account for roughly three-quarters of the total crypto market cap. While a significant