▶Schwab is launching spot trading for Bitcoin and Ether in the near future, a move previously hindered by its status as a bank.Jul 2026

▶The company is actively considering offering financially-focused prediction markets through a CBOE product, but will not offer contracts on sports or pop culture, viewing them as gambling.Jul 2026

▶Schwab recently closed its acquisition of Forge to provide its clients with access to private company shares.Jun–Jul 2026

▶Trading activity on the platform has been exceptionally strong, with a 39% year-over-year increase in daily average trades in March and continued high levels in April.

▶Schwab's market position is viewed in two contrasting ways: as a stable, established incumbent that new platforms' customers will eventually migrate to, and as a high-cost operator whose customer acquisition costs created an arbitrage opportunity for disruptors like Robinhood.

▶There is a contrast in Schwab's strategic aggression; the company is moving decisively into new areas like spot crypto and private equity (via the Forge acquisition), yet is taking a much more cautious and limited approach to prediction markets.

▶Schwab's historically high customer acquisition cost of $150 is presented as a past vulnerability, while its new plan to use LLMs for client acquisition is presented as a forward-looking strategy to address this.Jul 2026

▶The company's regulatory status as a bank is portrayed as both a past constraint that prevented it from offering spot crypto and a current reality it must navigate as it enters the space, unlike non-bank competitors.