GM — Tyler Warner’s Morning Minute roundup, condensed and sharpened for crypto readers. Quick heads-up: this column reflects his views. Also check the new five-minute daily news show (Apple Podcasts / Spotify).
Top story: Charles Schwab goes big on spot crypto
- What happened: Schwab confirmed on its Q1 earnings call that spot Bitcoin and Ethereum trading is now live in a phased rollout under the “Schwab Crypto” brand, operating through Charles Schwab Premier Bank.
- Rollout plan: employees first, then early-access registrants, then the full client base.
- Custody/settlement: handled by Paxos.
- Fees: 75 basis points (0.75%) per trade — materially higher than competing ETFs.
- Product roadmap: CEO Rick Wurster said Schwab will “likely” add prediction markets down the road, distinguishing financial-event contracts from sports or political wagers.
- Why it matters: Schwab oversees $11.8 trillion in client assets and has 16,000 financial advisors. Add recent moves by Goldman (filing for a Bitcoin income ETF) and Morgan Stanley (disclosing $1.24B in Bitcoin ETF exposure on its Q1 13F and launching its own ETF at 0.14%) — and the story is clear: the largest U.S. retail and institutional finance brands are already inside crypto.
Regulatory spotlight: CFTC chair pressed on prediction markets and offshore perps
- CFTC Chair Mike Selig faced a bipartisan grilling in the Senate Agriculture Committee. Senators challenged the CFTC’s aggressive legal defense of prediction markets while demanding a plan to curb volume siphoned off by offshore perpetual-futures venues.
- Prediction markets stance: Selig argues for exclusive federal jurisdiction and called state restrictions an attempt to nullify federal law; he filed an amicus brief to that effect.
- Offshore perp problem: Hyperliquid — a decentralized, offshore perpetual exchange — is drawing volume away from regulated U.S. venues and sits outside CFTC reach. Senators want a concrete strategy; Selig pointed to the Clarity Act as the fix — though that bill remains in markup.
DeFi rescue: Tether backs Drift recovery; stablecoin dynamics shift
- Rescue package: Tether committed up to $127.5M as part of a $147.5M package to help recover Drift Protocol after an April 1 exploit drained approximately $285M.
- Structure: a revenue-linked credit facility intended to repay $295.7M in user losses over time from Drift’s trading revenue.
- Market reaction: DRIFT token rallied about 20% on the news.
- Settlement change: Drift is relaunching using USDT (Tether) as its settlement layer, not USDC (Circle). On Solana, USDC still has a roughly 2.65x market-cap lead over USDT.
- Context: Drift had about $550M TVL and 128,000 users pre-hack. Circle was criticized for not freezing stolen USDC faster — the attacker moved $232M from Solana to Ethereum via Circle’s cross-chain tooling while Circle declined to act without a court order. Tether’s intervention effectively flips the dominant stablecoin on one of Solana’s largest protocols.
NFT market fallout: another platform shutters
- Foundation, a notable NFT art marketplace from the 2021 boom, announced it is shutting down after a planned sale to Blackdove collapsed. CEO Kayvon Tehranian said the sale was pursued to keep Foundation alive but that outcome is no longer possible.
- Users have a one-year wind-down window to migrate assets.
- This closure continues a pattern: MakersPlace closed in January 2025; Nifty Gateway shut in January 2026 with 650,000 NFTs still on the platform; Christie’s closed its digital art department last fall; Sotheby’s scaled back its Metaverse team in 2024; Magic Eden shut its NFT marketplace. OpenSea remains the dominant survivor.
Quick takes / trackers
- Corporate treasuries and ETFs continue to expand crypto exposure.
- Meme-coin flows and short-term market narratives remain active.
That’s it for this Morning Minute — Schwab’s move especially signals that legacy finance is not “coming” to crypto; much of it is already here.
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