Charles Schwab has switched on the first round-the-clock product in its history, letting clients trade select cryptocurrency futures nearly 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on its thinkorswim platforms.

The futures cover bitcoin, ether, solana and ripple contracts, and they give clients price exposure without holding the underlying tokens.

The more consequential signal, however, came from a separate corner of the firm: Schwab is preparing to bring spot crypto trading and custody to the financial advisors who steer trillions of dollars through its platform.

Schwab Flips On Its First 24/7 Product Into a Crypto Slump

The 24/7 futures access runs through Charles Schwab Futures and Forex, a registered futures commission merchant, and extends a crypto push that is only a few months old. Schwab opened direct crypto trading to retail clients this spring, a phased rollout of spot bitcoin and ether priced at 75 basis points and routed through Paxos.

Timing is the part worth pausing on. Schwab, which reported $12.61 trillion in total client assets and 10.3 million daily average trades in April, is widening always-on access just as retail enthusiasm cools.

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Bitcoin fell about 6% the day the news broke and has been grinding lower for months.

James Kostulias, head of trading services, said the firm is "committed to adding features and resources that expand our offering."

The Real Prize Is the $5 Trillion Advisor Channel

Behind the consumer-facing launch sits a bigger target. At a Schwab Advisor Services media roundtable in late May, the firm said it aims to add spot crypto trading, transfers and custody for registered investment advisors by the middle of 2027.

Jalina Kerr, managing director and head of advisor experience, said the firm is "on track for next year, probably more like the middle of the year," while cautioning that the date could move.

That channel is where the money is. Schwab custodies more than $5 trillion for over 16,000 advisors, and those advisors currently send client crypto allocations off-platform to specialist custodians. F

olding digital assets into the same account view as stocks and bonds would pull a large pool of advised money toward a single provider, assuming Schwab hits its timeline.

Kerr said advisors have leaned on exchange-traded products for crypto exposure, with demand for direct ownership rising among clients who already hold coins elsewhere.

Wall Street's Old Guard Races the Crypto-Native Custodians

Schwab is not moving in a vacuum. Traditional brokers spent years keeping crypto at arm's length, and they are now competing for the same accounts that pure-play firms built their businesses on.

Morgan Stanley is the closest comparison. The bank has been bringing crypto to its E*Trade platform, with a pilot covering bitcoin, ether and solana reported at 50 basis points, below Schwab's 75-point retail fee.

SoFi resumed retail crypto trading last year, and Interactive Brokers has offered crypto since 2021, when it launched trading through Paxos, the same execution partner Schwab uses on the retail side.

The advisor plan is where Schwab's approach diverges. Rather than chase self-directed retail traders, it is aiming at the custody layer underneath registered investment advisors, territory held today by Coinbase Prime, BitGo and Anchorage.

If Schwab delivers integrated custody, transfers and reporting, advisors could consolidate fragmented crypto holdings without leaving the platform they already use for everything else.

That is a direct challenge to the crypto-native custodians, and it is the reason the 2027 plan matters more than the futures headline.

Sources: company disclosures, Schwab Advisor Services roundtable.

Fractional Shares and Platform Tweaks Round Out the Week

The rest of the update is incremental. Schwab expanded fractional trading to most US stocks and ETFs with a $1 minimum, letting clients buy by dollar amount inside the standard trade ticket rather than through a separate flow.

It also added expected price range data for marginable securities on Schwab.com and mobile dividend reinvestment controls, among other changes.

None of that reshapes the competitive map on its own. The crypto futures switch and the advisor custody timeline are the developments that put Schwab on the same field as both Wall Street rivals and the digital-asset specialists.