In the current situation of liquidity scarcity, the crypto market's demand for capital is still intensifying.
So, where might the new round of funding come from?
This month, American financial giant Charles Schwab Corporation, which manages over $11 trillion in assets, announced its entry into the crypto market and will launch cryptocurrency trading services in the first half of 2026. Its CEO, Rick Wurster, stated that the company has completed regulatory and technical assessments.
Charles Schwab, founded in 1971, is a large American financial services company with a wide range of business operations including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs, brokerage services, bank savings, investment advisory, wealth management, retirement planning, and more, managing client assets in the trillions of dollars.
In the third quarter of this year, Charles Schwab's net new assets reached 134.4 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 48%, exceeding analysts' expectations of 130.2 billion USD.
Charles Schwab manages a vast amount of assets, deeply rooted in the traditional financial system, with a large customer base. The increased investment from traditional brokers and financial platforms represented by Charles Schwab signifies that crypto assets are moving toward mainstream platforms and may subsequently target more “traditional investors.”
The platform claims to have “completed regulatory and technical assessments, and is ready to launch crypto trading services,” which signals the establishment of a standardized channel and a decrease in the barriers to entry. Considering its customer base (including conservative investors, high-net-worth clients, and wealth management clients) and its capital scale, this may open up more pathways for traditional assets to be allocated to crypto assets.
This is not a singular event, nor does it indicate a collective action by traditional financial giants, such as:
Other brokers (such as Fidelity, Vanguard): This is a market size of trillions of dollars (with a total AUM exceeding 10 trillion). For example, Fidelity also expects to expand encryption services by 2026.
Banking and custody services (such as Standard Chartered): potential institutional custody demand is expected to reach hundreds of billions of dollars. We see that Standard Chartered also plans to launch BTC custody in January 2026, attracting bank-level funds.
More ETFs and index funds: With the approval of more ETFs, there is still room for hundreds of billions of dollars on top of the existing ETFs. At the same time, platforms like Schwab may further amplify retail inflows.
Pension and corporate funds: Hundreds of billions of dollars (IRA/401k accounts, individual retirement accounts, and employer-sponsored retirement plans), under the premise of a mature market, such conservative capital may also indirectly access the crypto market through platforms like Schwab.
Charles Schwab made a statement regarding the crypto market, saying “We have achieved great success in the cryptocurrency field,” which reflects the maturity of institutional acceptance of encrypted assets. It is expected that total inflows will be around a trillion dollars after 2026, driving the market from being institution-led to broader adoption.
In the future, there may be more brokers, banks, and sovereign wealth funds following up on services related to crypto trading.
What stage is the crypto market currently in?
In the current period of intensive events, the market's divergence in expectations for the subsequent trend has increased.
The current total market value of the crypto market is approximately $3.02 trillion, but signals of institutional adoption are still emerging, and it is expected that an improvement in the macro environment will further inject liquidity.
In the medium to long term, the layered layout of large institutions often leads to a multiplier effect in the later stages. The market still needs time to digest.
Earlier this year, with the implementation of three major bills, regulation, institutions, and compliance have all been synchronized. However, it still seems to be in a period of chaotic order or in the stage of order reconstruction.
On the other hand, the “golden incremental period” for users of centralized exchanges (CEX) seems to have peaked. There are more and more options available in the market: ETFs, traditional brokerage channels, institutional subscription purchases, listed companies hoarding coins, bank Crypto services, etc. The previous conditions of “scarcity of entry, lack of regulation, and concentration of traffic” have changed.
The entry of ETFs, brokerages, and banks means that the increase in crypto users is being diverted. What this reflects is not competition, but a paradigm shift: crypto finance is moving from its nascent stage to a mature structure led by compliance and institutions. ETFs and traditional brokerages may take away a significant portion of the incremental crypto users in the future.
Looking at it from another perspective, this year can also be seen as the first year that the crypto market has been officially accepted by traditional finance, and perhaps it is also the starting point of the first cycle of the crypto market after the reshaping of the liquidity cycle.
