Mallika Mitra's Barron's piece on crypto going mainstream, carried by Mint in India, looked at what changed when Charles Schwab announced it would let investors trade crypto directly. The market had reached $2.6 trillion, Bitcoin had gone from about $8,000 in early 2020 to a peak of $126,000 in October 2025, and the buyers were no longer only young: 68% of owners are under 45, which means a third are not.
My observation was about what actually moved older investors. Institutional credibility moved the needle in a way that price performance never did. A decade of price charts did not convince the 68-year-old client who called me after the Schwab news. A familiar brand putting a trade button on the same screen as his bond ladder did. His question was whether he was missing something.
My answer, which I shared with Mallika, is that a 70-year-old with a fixed-income need and low risk tolerance does not automatically benefit from an asset class just because Charles Schwab decided to offer it. Availability is not suitability. The question is the same one I ask about every holding: what job does this do in your plan, and what happens to the plan if it goes to zero?
For a retiree who wants exposure anyway, the answer is small, a low single-digit percentage, held in a taxable account, sized so that a full loss changes nothing about the income plan. For most retirees the honest answer is that they are not missing anything they need.
Read the full article at Mint Markets →
