Charles Schwab is preparing to enter the Bitcoin trading arena, according to CEO Rick Wurster, who spoke in a new interview with CNBC. This positions Charles Schwab as a direct competitor to Coinbase, Wurster discussed.
“Our clients are invested in crypto today,” Wurster said. “In fact, our clients hold more than 20% of the exchange traded product crypto in the entire industry, so they’re invested.” Despite this, he noted that crypto holdings currently represent “only about $25 billion out of the $10.8 trillion that our clients have, so it’s still relatively small.”
Wurster revealed that Charles Schwab is “anticipating launching Bitcoin and ether, sometime soon so that our clients have access to that.” He added that the offering could serve as a key growth driver for the company.
Wurster explained that client demand is driving the decision. “What we hear from many of our clients are that they have 98% of their wealth here at Schwab, and they might hold a percent or 2% at some digital native firm to hold their crypto, and they really want to bring it back to Schwab because they trust us,” Wurster said. “They want it to sit alongside their other assets and so we think we’ll see some real growth when we bring those to market.”
When asked if Schwab would be directly competing with Coinbase, Wurster was clear: “It absolutely would. If they’re buying their crypto at Coinbase, we would love to see them bring their crypto back to Schwab.”
The announcement comes on the same day President Trump plans to sign the GENIUS Act into law. The legislation will establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins, which some believe will lead to an increase in BTC trading volume, further encouraging traditional finance firms like Schwab to embrace Bitcoin.