Fidelity, a financial services company with $5.9 trillion in assets under management, has introduced new retirement accounts that will allow Americans to invest in crypto nearly fee-free.

The three accounts — a tax-deferred traditional IRA and two Roth IRAs (one is a rollover) — permit the buying and selling of Bitcoin (BTC), Ether (ETH), and Litecoin (LTC). While there are no fees to open or maintain the accounts, Fidelity charges a 1% spread on the execution price of crypto buy and sell transactions.

The crypto IRAs are offered by Fidelity Digital Assets, a subsidiary of Fidelity that has traditionally offered institutional investors the opportunity to buy and sell crypto.

The broadening of its client base may be another signal of the changing crypto landscape in the United States, which has seen the adoption of a strategic Bitcoin reserve and multiple companies, including stablecoin issuer Circle, filing for an initial public offering.

Fidelity states that, for security, it holds the majority of its crypto in cold storage, which consists of crypto wallets not connected to the internet.

Related: Bitcoin ETFs for retirement planning: A beginner’s guide

BTC and ETH exposure already offered for retirement accounts

While the direct purchase of cryptocurrencies in an IRA has never been strictly prohibited, few IRA providers have allowed such purchases, according to Investopedia. Therefore, Fidelity’s new IRAs may signal a change in the environment.

Still, for enthusiasts of BTC and ETH, there have been other options since 2024, such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) of those corresponding coins.

Since the debut of those ETFs, investors in the US have been able to gain exposure to crypto markets from their retirement accounts — depending on the brokerage. There has also been the rise of Bitcoin IRAs, which are self-directed retirement accounts that offer tax advantages.

Some crypto companies offer digital-asset-specific IRAs like BitIRA, where individuals can add altcoins such as LTC to their retirement portfolios.

The move to allow more Americans to invest crypto into retirement accounts may be gaining momentum. On April 1, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville announced the reintroduction of a bill to allow Americans to add cryptocurrency to their 401(k)s. The process would involve scaling back regulations issued by the Department of Labor.

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Curve Finance, a decentralized lending protocol and exchange, notched record-breaking trading volumes of nearly $35 billion in the first quarter of 2025, a spokesperson for the protocol told Cointelegraph. 

Trading volumes increased more than 13% from the first quarter of 2024, largely due to a surge in transactions, from around 1.8 million to some 5.5 million in Q1 2025, Curve said. 

The strong Q1 volumes come amid overall declines in the cryptocurrency market, with the total market capitalization of cryptocurrencies dropping by more than 20% in the year-to-date as of March 31, according to data from CoinGecko.

Curve’s total value locked (TVL) over time. Source: DefiLlama

Related: Curve Finance launches ‘Savings crvUSD’ yield-bearing stablecoin

Changing DeFi Landscape

Launched in 2020, Curve has taken numerous steps in the past year to keep pace with the changing decentralized finance (DeFi) landscape.

In June 2024, Curve adopted crvUSD, its stablecoin, for fee distribution to tokenholders, replacing an older model that paid holders in shares of the 3crv liquidity pool.

In November, Curve partnered with Elixir, a blockchain network, to help onboard BlackRock’s tokenized money market fund, BUIDL, to DeFi. 

By the end of 2025, Curve plans to consolidate its lending markets into a single user interface and provide borrowers with more time to close positions before they are liquidated, it told Cointelegraph. 

Curve founder Michael Egorov said in March that he expects many decentralized exchanges (DEXs) to evolve into bespoke platforms for stablecoins pegged to various currency denominations. 

“Exchanges between stablecoins of different denominations like the euro, US dollar, and others are not yet properly solved. How to provide liquidity without losing money, but while earning a lot of money, is kind of an open question that I think will be solved soon,” Egorov said.

Despite the rise in transactions, the total value locked (TVL) on Curve’s platform is approximately $1.8 billion as of April 2, according to data from DefILlama, down from highs of roughly $2.5 billion at the start of the year.

Curve’s native token, Curve DAO (CRV), has a market capitalization of approximately $640 million at this writing, marking a more than 40% decline in the year-to-date, according to data from Cointelegraph.

Related: BTC miners adopted ‘treasury strategy,’ diversified business in 2024: Report

Two Democratic lawmakers in the US Senate and House of Representatives have called on acting Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Mark Uyeda to preserve information regarding World Liberty Financial, the crypto firm backed by President Donald Trump’s family.

In an April 2 letter, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Maxine Waters — ranking members of the Senate Banking Committee and House Financial Services Committee, respectively — asked Uyeda to provide information to Congress based on Trump’s ties to World Liberty Financial (WLFI). The two lawmakers suggested the SEC may be being influenced by the firm, and “this conflict of interest may be interfering with its mission to protect investors and maintain fair and orderly markets.”

“The Trump family’s financial stake in World Liberty Financial represents an unprecedented conflict of interest with the potential to influence the Trump Administration’s oversight — or lack thereof — of the cryptocurrency industry, creating an obvious incentive for the Trump Administration to direct federal agencies, including the SEC, to take positions favorable to cryptocurrency interests that directly benefit the President’s family,” said the letter.

April 2 letter to acting SEC chair Mark Uyeda. Source: House Financial Services Committee

The letter came roughly a week after WLFI announced it had launched a stablecoin, USD1, on the BNB Chain and Ethereum blockchain. However, since January, Trump has followed through with several crypto policies and projects with potential conflicts of interest, including plans to establish a national cryptocurrency stockpile and the launch of a TRUMP memecoin.

Related: Crypto has a regulatory capture problem in Washington — Or does it?

According to Warren and Waters, Americans deserved transparency about Trump’s crypto ventures and how they could potentially influence policy at the SEC, a financial regulatory agency largely intended to be independent of the administration. The two called on Uyeda to preserve records and communications related to WLFI from Trump and his family, as well as communications with the SEC.

“The American people deserve to know whether their financial markets are being regulated impartially or whether regulatory decisions are being made to benefit the President’s family financial interests,” wrote the Democratic lawmakers.

The letter reiterated arguments Waters made in an April 2 House Financial Services Committee hearing. The California lawmaker said that without oversight and accountability, Trump could install WLFI’s stablecoin for government payments and profit directly from his position as president. Many other lawmakers and financial experts across the political spectrum have expressed concern over Trump’s potential conflicts of interest with the crypto industry.

SEC leadership under Trump

Since Trump appointed Uyeda as acting chair, the SEC has dropped investigations and enforcement actions into several crypto firms, including those with executives who contributed directly to the president’s 2024 campaign.

Paul Atkins, Trump’s pick to chair the SEC after Uyeda, is expected to face a vote in the Senate Banking Committee on April 3. If Atkins’ nomination moves out of committee, the full chamber will decide whether to confirm him.

Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions