Bitcoin Investment

Fidelity, World’s 4th Largest Asset Manager, Says Crypto Products ‘Underway’

Wilma Woo | Sep 21, 2018 | 11:00

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US multinational financial services corporation Fidelity Investments plans to release details of its new cryptocurrency offerings before the end of the year, its CEO revealed this week.

‘A Few Things Underway’

Speaking at the Boston Fintech Week in its hometown, Abigail Johnson said the company, which is famous for its bullish stance on cryptocurrency, had several projects underway in the space.

“We’ve got a few things underway, a few things that are partially done but also kind of on the shelf because it’s not really the right time,” she said in a conversation quoted by Xconomy.

We hope to have some things to announce by the end of the year.

Fidelity has made a name for itself bucking the risk-averse trend of traditional finance to Bitcoin 00 in recent years.

As early as 2015, the firm’s charity spin-off Fidelity Charitable began offering Bitcoin donations, a move which generated $69 million in 2017 alone.

“It worked out because there were so many people, newly incredibly wealthy through Bitcoin, who were looking to become philanthropists,” Johnson explained, calling it a “surprising hit.”

“We made it really easy for them.”

Joining The Crowded Non-Custodial Market?

Nonetheless, times have proven tough for more recent innovative undertakings, an experimental fund set up in 2017 having temporarily shut down in July as multiple senior executives left Fidelity to pursue other projects.

While not hinting about the exact nature of its future products or services, Johnson appeared to suggest they would be the result of a long evaluation process whittled down to cater to market demand.

Q4 this year will see non-custodial Bitcoin trading offerings from Wall Street veterans including Intercontinental Exchange and Citigroup, while Goldman Sachs has yet to confirm when it will launch its own project.

“What we started with was building a long list of use cases for either Bitcoin, Ethereum, other cryptocurrencies, or potentially just raw blockchain technology,” Johnson added. “Most of them have been scrapped by now or at least put on the shelf.”

What do you think Fidelity Investment’s potential crypto offerings could be? Let us know in the comments below!

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