Fidelity Launches IRA That Allows Direct Investments in Crypto

Fidelity Investments has launched a new IRA plan that lets investors directly invest in crypto, including bitcoin, ether and litecoin.

The Fidelity Crypto IRA was launched Wednesday (April 2) and joins several crypto exchange-traded funds offered by Fidelity that enable investors to track the prices of digital assets without directly investing in them, CoinDesk reported Wednesday.

The new IRA plan meets clients’ demands for a tax-advantaged way to trade and hold crypto, according to the report.

A Fidelity spokesperson told CoinDesk, per the report: “Fidelity is committed to offering investment products and solutions to meet the changing needs and interests of our customers, accompanied by education and support.”

According to Fidelity’s website, the Fidelity Crypto IRA offers Roth, traditional and rollover IRAs; requires no fees for account opening or maintenance; charges a spread of 1% on the execution price of crypto buy and sell transactions; and provides custody in which most of the crypto is held in digital wallets not connected to the internet.

The site said: “Crypto is for investors with a high risk tolerance.”

Fidelity published a report Jan. 7 saying that governments and central banks will be among the next “significant investors” in bitcoin.

The report said that while many countries hold bitcoin, it has been through government seizures and recoveries from criminal cases, and that the U.S. and other governments have requirements for the selling or handling of this bitcoin and can’t list them as part of their treasury.

“We expect 2025 to be the year this changes for both acceptance and adoption,” Fidelity’s Matt Hogan wrote in the report. “This is to say, we anticipate more nation-states, central banks, sovereign wealth funds and government treasuries will look to establish strategic positions in bitcoin.”

On March 6, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile.

It was reported March 26 that Fidelity Investments is in the advanced stages of testing its own stablecoin and is preparing to launch it. The planned launch is part of the company’s expansion into the burgeoning market for tokenized versions of U.S. Treasuries.