Fidelity Crypto

Is Fidelity Crypto safe?

Yes, by the standards of crypto platforms, Fidelity Crypto is one of the safest places in the US to hold coins with a company. Your crypto is held by Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association, a trust bank chartered by the federal Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which has kept bitcoin for institutions since 2019 without a reported loss. We score it 87/100, above Coinbase and Robinhood Crypto.

The catch is that a strong name is doing some of the work. Fidelity is a private company, it does not publish a proof of reservesProof of reservesA report in which a crypto exchange shows that it holds enough coins to cover all customer balances, ideally checked by an outside firm.More in the glossary for crypto accounts, and the crypto is not covered by SIPC, unlike the shares in your Fidelity brokerage account.

Who holds your crypto

This is the part most customers get wrong. A Fidelity Crypto account is not a brokerage account. Fidelity's disclosures say the account, the custody and the trading are all provided by Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association. Fidelity Brokerage Services and National Financial Services, the SIPC members that hold your stocks and funds, "do not offer crypto as a direct investment nor provide trading or custody services".

That trust bank has a long regulated history for a crypto firm:

Year	Milestone
2018	Fidelity Investments sets up Fidelity Digital Assets for institutional bitcoin custody
2019	New York's Department of Financial Services grants Fidelity Digital Asset Services, LLC a limited purpose trust charter
2022	Fidelity Crypto launches for individual investors
December 2025	OCC approves conversion to a national trust bank, Fidelity Digital Assets, National Association, with its main office moving to Boston
2026	The bank issues its first stablecoin, the Fidelity Digital Dollar (FIDD)

A national trust bank charter is one of the strictest licences a US crypto custodian can hold. It brings federal examinations and capital rules, and trust law requires client assets to be held for the client, not used as the bank's own.

Custody and cold storage

Fidelity built its own custody system rather than renting one, starting with a proof of concept in 2016. Its help pages say customer crypto stays in that system and is never kept on an exchange. The same custodian holds the bitcoin of the Fidelity Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC), one of the largest US spot bitcoin ETFs, and that fund's 2025 annual report says its coins sit in cold storageCold storageKeeping crypto keys on a device or medium that is not connected to the internet, which protects them from most online attacks.More in the glossary with Fidelity Digital Assets.

The fund's report is also candid about the limits: the custodian's liability is capped, and insurance covering the loss of bitcoin may not be available at a reasonable cost. The same applies to individual accounts. If coins were stolen, your claim would be against the trust bank, not a government scheme.

What Fidelity does not show you

Exchanges such as Gemini or Coinbase either publish audited accounts as listed companies or post proof of reservesProof of reservesA report in which a crypto exchange shows that it holds enough coins to cover all customer balances, ideally checked by an outside firm.More in the glossary. Fidelity Investments (FMR LLC) is privately owned and publishes neither for its crypto business. The OCC examines the trust bank, but its findings are confidential.

So the score for reserves (75) rests on regulation and reputation rather than on numbers you can check. For most customers that is a reasonable trade, but it is a trade.

Costs and limits worth knowing

Fidelity charges no commission on crypto trades but builds a spread of up to 1% into each price, and it does not show that spread separately on the confirmation. Fidelity Crypto supports far fewer coins than an exchange, and it is for US residents only.

How to use Fidelity Crypto more safely

1. Protect the Fidelity login itself. Crypto sits behind the same username as your retirement accounts, so use a hardware security key or authenticator app and turn on account alerts.
2. Remember that the brokerage SIPC cover stops at the crypto account. Keep that in mind when deciding how much to hold there.
3. If you want exposure without holding coins, a spot bitcoin ETF held in your brokerage account sits inside SIPC-covered custody as a security, though SIPC does not protect against price falls.
4. Before moving coins to your own wallet, send a small test amount and check the network.

How we scored it

Security history (92) is the strongest factor: no loss of customer crypto since custody began in 2019. Reserves (75) is the weakest, because there is no proof of reservesProof of reservesA report in which a crypto exchange shows that it holds enough coins to cover all customer balances, ideally checked by an outside firm.More in the glossary or public audited accounts for the crypto business. Licensing (88) reflects a federal trust bank charter but only one country. Confidence is medium because we could not open Fidelity's current crypto fee and availability pages directly.