Fidelity Launches Trading Services

Published 5 years ago on October 21, 2018

One of the leading financial services corporations, Fidelity Investments has recently announced the launch of their new company dedicated for providing digital currency services including custody and trade execution. The services will be available for institutional investors such as hedge funds, market intermediaries and family offices. It was announced on Monday that the launch of the new company will be named Fidelity Digital Asset Services LLC. The business went on to say:

“The company will offer enterprise-quality custody and trade execution services for digital assets, commonly referred to as cryptocurrencies, to sophisticated institutional investors such as hedge funds, family offices and market intermediaries.”

The services will be offered in three main areas:

Trade execution
Customer service
Institutional grade custody

The service aims to provide “a secure, compliant, and institutional-grade omnibus storage solution for bitcoin, ether and other digital assets,” for its customers and included that its solution consists of vaulted cold storage and an access system in which the firm described as “multi-level physical and cyber.”The trade execution service will take advantage of the companies internal crossing engine and smart order router which allows for execution at several venues for the market. Clients will also have access to a dedicated team of client service specialists, through onboarding throughout the whole relationship with the company according to the firm. Head of Fidelity Digital Asset Services, Tom Jessop, told CNBC that the company already has over 13,000 institutional clients, saying:

“These institutions require a sophisticated level of service and security, equal to the experience they’re used to when trading stocks or bonds.”

The CEO and chairman of Fidelity Investments, Abigail P. Johnson initially revealed her ideas for the firm back in May last year and at the time said “I love this stuff [crytpo] and what the future holds. I’d like to think that huge new markets and products will be built on these open platforms.”For over four years, the company has been looking into digital currencies through its blockchain incubator. They have experimented with crypto mining and has integrated with Coinbase to let clients see their balances in crypto on the Fidelity website. Last year, a public charity gained over $65 million in crypto donations alone. According to Bitcoin.com, The CEO of Fidelity Investments commented on the matter saying:

“Our goal is to make digitally-native assets, such as bitcoin, more accessible to investors … We expect to continue investing and experimenting, over the long-term, with ways to make this emerging asset class easier for our clients to understand and use.”

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Robert Johnson

Robert first came across Bitcoin in 2016 during a meetup in Belgium, and has been hooked ever since. With a background in Economics, you can find Robert frequently looking at the Twitter feed of the SEC for any regulatory updates relating to Bitcoin and Crypto in general.