Charles Schwab plans to introduce spot trading for Bitcoin and Ethereum, expanding the $10 trillion brokerage’s platform beyond its existing crypto exchange-traded funds. Chief Executive Officer Rick Wurster told CNBC the service should launch "sometime soon," with an internal target of the next 12 months. Wurster said clients want digital assets "to sit alongside their other assets" at Schwab, which serves nearly 40 million investors. Allowing direct trading in the two largest cryptocurrencies would position the firm in direct competition with specialist exchanges such as Coinbase. The move underscores mounting demand for mainstream access to crypto. Schwab estimates that more than one-fifth of the assets its customers already hold are in crypto-related ETFs, suggesting a sizable base for conversion once spot trading goes live.