Chainlink lands at Charles Schwab: LINK carries a 0.75 percent fee, but investors in Germany are left out

Since Monday, November 9, customers of US broker Charles Schwab have been able to buy and sell Chainlink. Schwab added LINK to its Schwab Crypto offering together with Solana and Avalanche and charges 0.75 percent of the order value. For investors in Germany the route to the token stays the same: Schwab Crypto is only open to customers resident in the US, and here a MiCA-licensed exchange remains the direct way to LINK.

Chainlink trades at $10.61 on Tuesday morning, or €9.44, according to CoinGecko. That is 2.3 percent more than 24 hours earlier, but 3.7 percent less than a week ago and 17.6 percent less than 30 days ago. The daily low was $10.39, the daily high $10.81. The Schwab listing did not visibly move the price on Monday. What it does change is who in the US can reach LINK through an ordinary brokerage account.

Chainlink on Tuesday morning: $10.61 after a low of $10.39

Monday was a weak trading day for LINK. According to CoinGecko's daily data, the closing price on November 9 was around $10.40, the lowest in 30 days. Overnight the token recovered to $10.61. That puts its market capitalisation at about $8.14 billion, and around $240 million worth of LINK changed hands across all exchanges in the past 24 hours. Just under 766.8 million tokens are in circulation.

The wider market offers little tailwind. Bitcoin stands at around $74,460 on Tuesday morning, 2.2 percent below its level a week ago and almost 10 percent below where it was 30 days ago. Over the month Chainlink has lost almost twice as much as bitcoin. The token is still around 80 percent short of its all-time high of $52.70 from May 2021.

Schwab Crypto: what the November 9 announcement says

Charles Schwab is one of the large US brokers for retail investors, known for stocks, funds and the thinkorswim trading platform. Schwab Crypto ran as an early pilot from May 2026 and has been open to all eligible retail clients since October 2026. Until now it offered bitcoin and ether. The announcement of November 9 added Solana, Avalanche and Chainlink, bringing the number of digital assets on Schwab to five.

Trading takes place on schwab.com, in the Schwab app and on thinkorswim, in the same account that holds stocks and funds. Clients therefore see crypto positions and securities side by side. Joe Vietri, who is responsible for digital assets at Schwab, said: “We continue to expand Schwab Crypto to give clients greater choice and flexibility in how they invest in digital assets.” Schwab plans to add further coins but gave no names or dates.

The small print matters. The coins are offered by Charles Schwab Premier Bank. According to Schwab they are protected neither by the US deposit insurer FDIC nor by the investor protection scheme SIPC, because they are not securities. Schwab Crypto is available in every US state except New York and Louisiana, but not in US territories and not abroad. Clients who move out of a supported area may have their account restricted or closed.

Why Chainlink?

Schwab does not explain its choice in the announcement. It is striking, though, that the selection includes a token whose network is used mainly by banks and financial service providers. Chainlink is a so-called oracle network: it delivers outside data, such as prices, to applications on the blockchain and links different blockchains through the CCIP protocol. The basics are covered in our explainer What is Chainlink?. For a broker whose clients know stocks and bonds, that is a story that can be told.

75 basis points per order: what buying LINK at Schwab costs

Schwab charges 75 basis points of the order value on every purchase and sale, or 0.75 percent. A basis point is one hundredth of a percent. An order of $1,000 therefore costs $7.50, and one of $10,000 costs $75. Schwab itself calls the rate one of the lowest in the industry. Whether that holds depends on the comparison: against the instant-buy function of some apps it is cheap, against the order book of a crypto exchange it is expensive.

Then there is what the announcement leaves open. It does not mention any way to withdraw to a private wallet. Anyone who buys LINK at Schwab therefore holds the token with the broker, much like a share in a securities account. For many retail investors that is convenient. Anyone who wants to use Chainlink on the blockchain, stake it or move it to a hardware wallet needs a provider that allows withdrawals.

Buying Chainlink in Germany: fees from 0.15 to 1.875 percent

For investors in Germany, Schwab Crypto is not an option. Since the transition periods ended, crypto service providers here need a licence under MiCA, the EU's regulation for crypto assets. Whether a provider has one is shown in the public register of the European Securities and Markets Authority, ESMA. On October 27 our guide Buying Chainlink in Germany compared five licensed exchanges. Fees ranged from 0.15 percent in the order book to 1.875 percent for a simple instant buy.

Provider and route	Fee	Cost on €1,000 or $1,000
Charles Schwab, Schwab Crypto (US only)	0.75%	$7.50
Bitvavo, order book	0.25% taker, 0.15% maker	€2.50 or €1.50
BSDEX, order book	0.35% taker	€3.50
Kraken, order book	0.80% taker, 0.40% maker	€8.00 or €4.00
Kraken, instant buy	1%	€10.00
Highest rate in the comparison, instant buy	1.875%	€18.75

The rates of the German providers come from our comparison of October 27, Schwab's rate from the announcement of November 9. A taker accepts an existing offer in the order book immediately; a maker places a limit order in the book and waits for it to be filled. Above all, the table shows that anyone in Germany who uses the order book often pays less for LINK than a Schwab client in the US. Choosing the convenient instant buy, on the other hand, costs slightly more than twice as much.

Fee rates are only part of the sum. In the order book the gap between the bid and the ask comes on top; in an instant buy it is usually already built into the price. There are also fixed charges for withdrawals to a private wallet, which weigh heavily on small amounts. How the licensed providers charge is set out in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.

Broker instead of exchange: the German route via a securities account

Anyone in Germany who wants to hold LINK in a securities account, as at Schwab, has two options. Some neobrokers offer direct purchases of crypto assets in the same app as stocks, legally through a licensed partner. The second option is exchange-traded securities on LINK, known as ETNs or ETPs, which you can buy through any account on a German stock exchange. What to bear in mind is explained in our guide Buying crypto ETFs in Germany. The two US spot ETFs on LINK from Grayscale and Bitwise are generally not available to retail investors in Germany because they lack the key information document required under the EU's PRIIPs regulation.

Why a US broker matters for the LINK price

A listing at a broker is not a buy order. It does, however, open a door for investors who so far had no reason to open an account at a crypto exchange. At Schwab, these are clients who have managed their money in stocks and funds for years. Whether they buy LINK, and in what size, cannot be measured today: the announcement gives neither the number of crypto clients nor any trading volumes.

A listing on a large platform does not necessarily lift the price when the wider market is moving the other way. That is exactly what happened on Monday. The announcement came out at 9am New York time, and LINK still closed the day at its lowest level in 30 days. The news would only have a lasting effect if new demand from brokerage clients built up over weeks and outweighed selling by other investors.

For the Chainlink network itself, Schwab changes nothing. The network's revenue depends on how many banks, exchanges and applications pay for data feeds and for transfers between blockchains. That money flows into LINK through the Chainlink Reserve. A new trading venue merely widens the circle of potential buyers.

Since November 8: the reserve, ETF outflows and the $10.26 level

Our article of November 8 on the Chainlink Reserve and the ETF outflows centred on two opposing flows of money. The reserve had bought 94,500 LINK on November 5, bringing its holdings to around 6.57 million tokens, while the two US spot ETFs saw net outflows of $1.06 million on November 6. LINK traded at $10.72 on that Sunday morning.

Two days later the price is a little over one percent lower at $10.61. The $10.26 level we flagged on November 6 has held: the lowest point since Sunday was $10.39, 13 cents above it. What is new since Sunday is the Schwab listing, an additional point of access for retail investors in the US. The distance to the moving averages is unchanged: LINK still trades below its 20-, 50- and 100-day lines and just above its 200-day line.

Chainlink price: the 20-day line at $11.31 is the first hurdle

The editorial team calculated the following levels from CoinGecko's daily closing prices over the past 200 days. A moving average is the mean of the closing prices over the stated number of days. It smooths out swings and shows the direction of the trend.

• $10.81: the daily high of the past 24 hours. A close above it would confirm Tuesday morning's recovery.
• $11.31: the 20-day line. It sits around 6.6 percent above the current price and is the next hurdle on the way up.
• $11.56: the 100-day line. It runs just above the 20-day line and forms a resistance zone with it.
• $12.50: the 50-day line. Only above it would the downtrend of recent weeks be broken.
• $10.39: the daily low of the past 24 hours and also the level of Monday's close.
• $10.26: the level from our articles of November 6 and 8, which has held so far.
• $10.09: the 200-day line. A daily close below it would also darken the long-term picture.

Only just over five percent separates the current price from the 200-day line. This autumn it is the most important support. Since the 30-day high of $13.34, LINK has lost around 20 percent, yet in that time it has not closed below the 200-day line. Our Chainlink prediction page collects where the price could head over a period of months; the levels above refer to the coming days.

Holding period and ETNs: how LINK is taxed in Germany

Anyone in Germany who buys LINK directly, that is through an exchange or a broker that holds the actual token, falls under Section 23 of the Income Tax Act. Gains are tax-free if more than one year passes between purchase and sale. Within that holding period, gains of up to €1,000 a year remain tax-free under an exemption limit; if that limit is exceeded, the entire gain is taxable at the personal income tax rate.

An ETN or ETP on LINK, by contrast, is a security. Gains on it are subject to the flat-rate withholding tax of 25 percent plus the solidarity surcharge, 26.375 percent in total, plus church tax where applicable, however long you hold the product. The holding period does not apply there. An example: on a €1,500 gain after 14 months you pay no tax on LINK held directly. With an ETN you owe €395.63 if your €1,000 saver's allowance has already been used up.

The holding period starts afresh with every purchase. If you buy in instalments, each tranche has its own date from which the gain is tax-free. Crypto tax tools and portfolio trackers record the purchase dates automatically. The current state of the political debate on the holding period is summarised on our page on the crypto holding period reform.

Our assessment: Schwab widens access, demand has yet to follow

In the editorial team's view, the Schwab listing is a signal with a long fuse and little immediate effect. In Chainlink's favour, a broker of this size is taking the token into its brokerage offering alongside bitcoin, ether and Solana. In the US, LINK thus joins a small group of crypto assets that a retail investor can buy without a crypto exchange. Against it stands the state of the market: the price is around 20 percent below its 30-day high, the wider market is slipping, and the first hours after the announcement brought no recovery.

For investors in Germany the news is above all a benchmark. Several licensed exchanges here undercut in their order books the 0.75 percent that Schwab advertises as low. Anyone who wants to buy LINK can already do so on terms that a large US broker describes as among the best in the industry. This is not a recommendation to buy or sell. An investment in LINK can lead to a total loss.

Chainlink at Schwab: without a close above $11.31 there is no tailwind

1. Choose a route: Check in the ESMA register whether your exchange holds a MiCA licence, and compare the order book with the instant buy. The licensed providers and their fees are listed in our comparison of the best crypto exchanges.
2. Decide between account and token: If you would rather hold LINK next to your stocks, our comparison of the best crypto brokers shows providers that offer crypto and securities in one app. Keep in mind the tax difference between the actual token and an ETN.
3. Record the purchase date: Note the date of every tranche so that you can prove the one-year holding period. Crypto tax tools do this automatically.

For the price, the starting position is clear. As long as LINK closes below the 20-day line at $11.31, the weak wider market will shape the picture more than the new access via Schwab. A daily close below the 200-day line at $10.09 would be the clearer warning sign.

(As of November 10, 2026. This article is not investment advice. Prices and fee structures change; check the terms with the provider before you buy.)