Schwab to Offer Spot Crypto Custody for Advisors by 2027

Charles Schwab plans to offer spot crypto trading, transfers and custody to registered investment advisors by mid-2027. The service will let advisors hold digital assets on the same custody platform they use for traditional client accounts.

Jalina Kerr, managing director at Schwab Advisor Services, disclosed the plan at a media roundtable and described advisors increasingly asking to consolidate client crypto positions into regulated advisory platforms to avoid separate reporting and duplicate compliance workflows.

Advisors currently route client crypto allocations off Schwab’s platform to specialist custodians and execution venues such as Coinbase Prime, BitGo and Anchorage. Schwab says the advisor product will fold crypto activity into its existing custody, reporting and compliance systems.

Schwab Advisor Services custodies more than $5 trillion for over 16,000 registered investment advisors. The firm has set a mid-2027 target while it finalizes custody architecture, federal compliance arrangements and trading connectivity for the advisor product.

Schwab’s retail spot trading rollout is scheduled to begin in 2026 and uses Paxos for sub-custody and execution. That retail service launched with bitcoin and ether, and the advisor offering is expected to support a similar list of digital assets.

Coinbase Prime oversees roughly $330 billion in institutional assets. Fidelity Digital Assets already provides custody and trade execution to advisors, family offices and hedge funds. Market participants expect a Schwab option to affect flows to pure-play custodians and to place pressure on pricing, onboarding speed and depth of integration for smaller specialist firms.

Nate Geraci, president of The ETF Store, wrote on social platforms, “We’re talking about the largest RIA custodian, with over $5 trillion on its custody platform.”