Fidelity Looks To Build New Financial Infrastructure Around Bitcoin

Boston based financial services corporation Fidelity Investments Inc., revealed Tuesday that Bitcoin has become a prime focus of the company’s digital asset division. In a recent interview with the Boston Globe, Fidelity’s head of sales and marketing Christine Sandler pointed out that 90% of Fidelity’s biggest customers are asking about bitcoin and that the firm is now looking to open up the space for retail.

Founded in the 1940s, the firm has $10.4 trillion in assets under management as of March 2021. Besides this, Fidelity Investments has been laying the groundwork to evolve as a crypto space giant for nearly six years now. Through a venture capital division called Devonshire Investors, the firm has funded various promising startups including Boston-based Coin Metrics, ErisX, Talos, among others.

Fidelity lays the groundwork to build a long-term relationship with cryptocurrencies

While the crypto space sees regular cycles of hype around newly created crypto tokens, the market giant remains focused on Bitcoin (BTC). To which Sandler noted that Fidelity is largely working with traditional investors and that bitcoin is seen as a prime gateway to the crypto space. She adds,

“The world’s interest in ethereum has also grown in recent months, but it is nothing close to what we see in bitcoin.”

As posted by Boston Globe, Fidelity’s digital asset business unit president Tom Jessop sees Bitcoin as a true asset class and the company is planning to develop a brand new and long-term financial infrastructure around the token. Furthermore, when Jessup was questioned about integrating altcoins on the platform, he replied, “I don’t think we will ever be the most extensive service provider in terms of asset coverage.”

Fidelity is aiming to dive deeper into crypto space

The company has been looking to expand itself in the crypto space for a longer-term now. One amongst the many moves that the company has displayed in the recent past is applying for Bitcoin ETF approval. In March 2021, like many other financial institutions, Fidelity applied for a Bitcoin ETF too. However, the approval is still pending. 

Another recent move, as posted by CoinGape was that the company acquired a 7.4% stake in publicly listed Bitcoin mining firm Marathon Digital Holdings. According to Forbes, the stake is worth about $20 million. Besides this, the company has been involved in Bitcoin mining since 2015. Although the scale of Fidelity’s bitcoin mining operation is unknown, it is reported to be small yet profitable.

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