Fidelity Crypto IRA: The Full Guide

Fidelity's own Crypto IRA holds real BTC, ETH, LTC, and SOL — no third-party custodian. 1% trading fee, $0 account fees, unavailable in CA and OR.

Updated June 2026 · Educational only, not financial advice

Fidelity Crypto IRA holds real BTC, ETH, LTC, and SOL directly in a Roth, Traditional, or Rollover IRA — custodied in-house, no third-party crypto-IRA provider needed

Every other route on this page either wraps crypto in an ETF (no native coin) or hands custody to a third-party specialist (iTrustCapital, BitcoinIRA). Fidelity Crypto IRA is the one option that gives you real coins inside a mainstream brokerage's own IRA wrapper.

About this topic

Fidelity Crypto IRA is Fidelity's own in-house crypto retirement account — it holds real BTC, ETH, LTC, and SOL directly, custodied by Fidelity Digital Assets, without routing through a third-party crypto-IRA specialist like iTrustCapital or BitcoinIRA. Educational only, not financial advice. It sits inside the same Roth, Traditional, or Rollover IRA wrapper as any other Fidelity retirement account — Roth for tax-free qualified withdrawals, Traditional or Rollover for tax-deferred growth.

This is a genuinely different product from the two other paths already covered on this site. The ETF path (see /invest/retirement/bitcoin-ira) buys IBIT, FBTC, or a spot ETH ETF inside a regular Roth — cheap (0.19–0.25% expense ratio) but you never hold the actual coin, only fund shares. Third-party custodians like iTrustCapital or BitcoinIRA (see /invest/retirement/bitcoin-ira-fees-compared) hold real coin but require a separate account, separate KYC, and their own fee schedule on top. Fidelity Crypto IRA holds real coin — like a third-party custodian — but inside an account you may already have, with Fidelity Digital Assets as custodian, an entity that has run institutional crypto custody since 2018.

The tradeoff is pricing structure, not headline cost. Fidelity charges no account-opening fee, no annual fee, and no custody fee — but it builds a 1% fee into the execution price of every buy and every sell (Fidelity calls this a trading fee, not a spread markup, but the effect is the same: buying $10,000 of BTC executes as if BTC were 1% more expensive; selling executes 1% below quoted price). That 1% roughly matches iTrustCapital's headline 1% trade fee, but Fidelity has no setup fee and no $1,000 minimum. It's still meaningfully more expensive per trade than the ETF path's sub-0.25% annual drag, so buy-and-hold investors optimizing purely for lowest cost should compare both before choosing.

How it actually works

You open a Fidelity Crypto account (a taxable brokerage-style crypto account) and, separately, choose the IRA account type — Roth, Traditional, or Rollover — the same way you'd designate any other Fidelity retirement account. Funding works like any IRA: a new contribution (subject to the standard annual limit), or a trustee-to-trustee rollover from an existing 401(k) or IRA, which carries no dollar cap. Once funded, you place buy/sell orders for BTC, ETH, LTC, or SOL through Fidelity's own crypto trading interface — the same app and login you already use for Fidelity brokerage accounts, not a separate portal.

Custody sits entirely with Fidelity Digital Assets, which has provided institutional cold-storage custody since 2018 — the majority of customer crypto sits in wallets with no live internet connection. You never receive a private key and cannot withdraw the coin to an external wallet; like every other IRA custody arrangement (see the McNulty v. Commissioner discussion on /invest/retirement/bitcoin-ira), personal key custody of IRA-owned crypto is a prohibited transaction under IRC Section 4975, so this restriction isn't Fidelity-specific — it applies to any crypto IRA.

Fidelity Crypto for IRAs is not available in California or Oregon (state-specific licensing restrictions), and you must be a US citizen at least 18 years old. There is no account minimum, no setup fee, and no ongoing account or custody fee — the entire cost of the product is the 1% built into each transaction's execution price.

Step by step

1Confirm you're not a California or Oregon resident — Fidelity Crypto for IRAs isn't available in either state.
2Open or use an existing Fidelity Roth, Traditional, or Rollover IRA, then enable Fidelity Crypto on that account.
3Fund via a new contribution (annual IRS limit applies) or a trustee-to-trustee rollover from an existing 401(k)/IRA (no dollar cap).
4Buy BTC, ETH, LTC, or SOL through Fidelity's own crypto interface — same login as your other Fidelity accounts.
5Understand the 1% fee is built into each execution price, not billed separately — a $10,000 buy executes at roughly $10,100 of value.
6Compare against the ETF-in-a-regular-Roth path (see /invest/retirement/bitcoin-ira) if you're optimizing purely for lowest long-term cost rather than holding native coin.

What works in your favor

No third-party crypto-IRA custodian needed — real coin custody and your existing Fidelity retirement account sit under one roof.
No account-opening fee, no annual fee, no custody fee, and no minimum — the entire cost is the 1% per-trade fee.
Fidelity Digital Assets has run institutional cold-storage custody since 2018 — a longer track record than most dedicated crypto-IRA custodians.

Watch out for

Not available in California or Oregon for the IRA version, unlike the ETF-in-a-regular-Roth path which has no state restriction.
The 1% per-trade fee is meaningfully higher than a spot ETF's 0.19–0.25% annual expense ratio for a buy-and-hold investor.
Only four coins supported (BTC, ETH, LTC, SOL) — no altcoin diversity beyond that, and no staking on the SOL holding inside the IRA wrapper.

Common questions

What is a Fidelity Crypto IRA?

It's Fidelity's own in-house crypto retirement account — you hold real BTC, ETH, LTC, or SOL inside a Roth, Traditional, or Rollover IRA, custodied directly by Fidelity Digital Assets rather than a third-party crypto-IRA specialist like iTrustCapital or BitcoinIRA.

How much does a Fidelity Crypto IRA cost?

There's no account-opening fee, annual fee, or custody fee. Fidelity charges a 1% trading fee built into the execution price of every buy and sell — a $10,000 purchase executes at roughly 1% above the quoted market price, and a sale executes roughly 1% below it.

Is a Fidelity Crypto IRA available in every state?

No. Fidelity Crypto for IRAs is not available to residents of California or Oregon. The taxable (non-IRA) Fidelity Crypto account has broader state availability, but the retirement-account version specifically excludes those two states as of 2026.

Which coins can I hold in a Fidelity Crypto IRA?

Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), Litecoin (LTC), and Solana (SOL). That's a narrower list than most third-party crypto-IRA custodians, which often support 60+ assets, but covers the four largest-cap coins most retirement investors are looking for.

Is Fidelity Crypto IRA cheaper than a Bitcoin ETF in a regular Roth?

Usually not, for a buy-and-hold investor. A spot BTC or ETH ETF (IBIT, FBTC) inside a regular Roth costs roughly 0.19–0.25% per year in expense ratio with no per-trade fee. Fidelity Crypto IRA's 1% fee is charged on every transaction, not annually — so a single buy-and-hold purchase costs less than a year of ETF fees, but frequent trading make the ETF path cheaper over time. Compare based on your actual trading frequency.

Can I take personal custody of the crypto in a Fidelity Crypto IRA?

No. As with any crypto IRA, IRC Section 4975 and the 2021 Tax Court case McNulty v. Commissioner mean personal custody of IRA-owned crypto is a prohibited transaction that disqualifies the entire account. Fidelity Digital Assets holds the coins in institutional cold storage — you never receive private keys while the assets remain inside the IRA.

Sources

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