Fund manager Fidelity is allowing its clients to invest in Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin via individual retirement accounts.
Starting Wednesday, investors have been able to get exposure to three virtual coins, which Fidelity already offers via its crypto trading service, by opening a “crypto IRA.”
Decrypt reached out to Fidelity for comment.
The firm, which is the U.S.’s largest provider of 401(k) savings accounts, will custody the assets with the new service.
Bitcoin is the biggest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of $1.7 trillion. Ethereum, the second biggest virtual coin, has a market cap of $228 billion.
Litecoin, which originally set out to be a faster, cheaper version of Bitcoin, is number 23 on the list, with a market cap of $6.4 billion. BTC was recently up about 1.3% in Wednesday trading, while ETH and LTC were in negative territory.
All of the virtual coins have been around since the digital asset industry’s early days, with Litecoin launching in 2011—two years after Bitcoin’s first block was mined.
Fidelity has been offering customers crypto for years. In 2022, along with Wall Street giants Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities, and Paradigm, it launched EDX Markets, a crypto exchange for institutional investors.
That same year, Fidelity revealed it would allow workers to save 20% of retirement funds in Bitcoin.
The Boston-based firm is also one of the top asset managers that received the go-ahead from the SEC last year to launch Bitcoin and Ethereum exchange-traded funds. The Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) has generated nearly $11.4 billion in net inflows, the second most among the 11 funds currently trading, according to data from U.K. asset manager Farside Investors. Those funds now manage almost $100 billion in assets.
The Fidelity Ethereum Fund (FETH), which debuted last July, has received about $1.4 billion in net inflows, the second most among the nine funds currently trading, according to Farside.
Edited by James Rubin
Daily Debrief Newsletter
Start every day with the top news stories right now, plus original features, a podcast, videos and more.
