Fidelity Investments Launches Crypto IRAs Allowing US Investors to Include Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) in Retirement Planning

Fidelity Investments has launched a new offering that allows US investors to include cryptocurrencies in their retirement planning. By Cointelegraph.

Financial services firm Fidelity Investments has launched a new offering that allows US investors to include cryptocurrencies in their retirement planning.

What Happened: Fidelity now provides individual retirement accounts (IRAs) with direct exposure to Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC), expanding the company’s growing involvement in digital assets.

The new product, called “Fidelity Crypto IRA,” is available to US citizens over 18 who live in states where Fidelity Digital Assets supports crypto IRAs and the company’s personal investment digital advice service is available.

Investors can choose from three different IRA structures:

* Traditional IRA

* Roth IRA

* Rollover IRA

To use the new service, customers must hold a Fidelity brokerage IRA with the same registration type as the crypto IRA they wish to open and fund. This brokerage IRA acts as the funding source for the crypto IRA, and customers transfer money from their brokerage IRA to the crypto IRA to make trades.

If a customer doesn’t already have a qualifying Fidelity brokerage IRA, the company will open one alongside the crypto IRA. The beneficiaries, registration type, and state of residence will be the same on both the brokerage IRA and the crypto IRA.

Fidelity is not charging any maintenance or custody fees for the crypto IRAs. This zero-fee approach applies to both opening and maintaining the account. The only cost is a 1% spread on buy and sell orders.

This spread represents the difference between the price a customer receives when selling cryptocurrency and the price at which Fidelity Digital Assets sources the cryptocurrency.

The company is launching the offering with three cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin is the largest digital asset with a market cap of $1.7 trillion. ETH follows as the second-largest at $228 billion. Litecoin, launched in 2011, ranks as the 23rd largest cryptocurrency with a market cap of $6.4 billion.

Why It’s Important: The launch of the crypto IRA offering marks a significant step in bringing cryptocurrency investments into mainstream retirement planning.

As one of the largest financial institutions in the US, Fidelity is a major force in the financial services industry. The company manages over $6 trillion in assets and serves 49 million customers.

Earlier this year, Fidelity announced that it would be expanding its involvement in crypto with the launch of a new institutional digital asset trading platform called EDX Markets.

FDI World reports that Fidelity is also testing a stablecoin and has no immediate plans to bring it to the market. The company is also exploring the tokenized U.S. Treasury market.

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