Here’s what happened in crypto today

Today in crypto, CoinFund’s president has taken aim at the latest crypto report from the BIS, Charles Schwab CEO eyes April 2026 window for debut of spot Bitcoin trading, a new report from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warns that crypto and stablecoins may destabilize finance and widen inequality.‘Crypto is not communism’ — Exec slams BIS’ take on cryptoThe Bank for International Settlements’ (BIS) push to isolate crypto markets and its controversial recommendations on DeFi and stablecoins is “dangerous” for the entire financial system, warns the head of a blockchain investment firm.“Many of their recommendations and conclusions — perhaps due to a mix of fear, arrogance, or ignorance — are completely uninformed and, frankly, dangerous,” CoinFund president Christopher Perkins said in an April 19 X post, referring to the BIS’ April 15 report titled “Cryptocurrencies and Decentralized Finance: Functions and Financial Stability Implications.” “Crypto is not communism,” Perkins said, pushing back against the BIS’ call for a “containment” approach to isolate crypto from traditional finance and the broader economy.“It’s the new internet that provides anyone with a connection access to financial services,” Perkins said. “You cannot control it anymore than you control the internet,” he added.Charles Schwab CEO hints spot BTC trading may come in April 2026Charles Schwab CEO Rick Wurster said the financial services company is looking at a potential April 2026 target to rollout spot Bitcoin trading to its clients.According to RIABiz, the CEO said that crypto was attracting traffic to the financial service company's crypto-focused website.70% of that traffic was not Schwab clients and represented potentially new prospects, Wurster said. The Schwab CEO gave a timeline for the rollout:“Our expectation is that with the changing regulatory environment, we are hopeful and likely to be able to launch direct spot crypto. Our goal is to do that in the next 12 months."The move comes at a time when many traditional financial institutions are increasingly adopting crypto or offering digital asset products to their clients.Crypto, DeFi may widen wealth gap, destabilize finance: BIS reportThe growing adoption of cryptocurrencies may pose risks to the traditional financial system and exacerbate wealth inequality, according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).In an April 15 report, the BIS warned that the number of investors and amount of capital in crypto and decentralized finance (DeFi) have “reached a critical mass,” with investor protection becoming a “significant concern for regulators.”The size of the crypto market signals that authorities should be worried about the “stability of crypto over and above the role it may have for TradFi and the real economy,” the report states, highlighting the role of stablecoins, which the BIS said have “become the means through which participants transfer value within crypto.”The report calls for targeted stablecoin regulation on stability and reserve asset requirements that will guarantee the redemption of stablecoins for US dollars during “stressed market conditions.”