Fidelity launches Fidelity Digital Assets for crypto tech
Fidelity Investments is creating a company on the side, under the name Fidelity Digital Assets, to bring cryptocurrency to institutional investors.
The firm will be based in Boston and will provide enterprise-grade custody solutions, a cryptocurrency trading execution platform and institutional advising services 24/7, to keep up with crypto trading.
Fidelity investment has so far limited its cryptocurrency exposure to a few periphery services and through donations via its non-profit Fidelity Charitable.
The new firm is scheduled to go live early 2019, with around 100 people in its staff.
Fidelity Digital Assets will offer three main services: the first one is custody services for Bitcoin, Ether and other digital assets. This is being designed to give institutional investors a compliant way to secure their assets by holding them in a physical vault.
The second one is trade execution services that leverage an internal crossing engine and smart order router that will execute trades using multiple third-party cryptocurrency liquidity suppliers.
Fidelity Digital Assets will also offer a dedicated client services team to help with the on-boarding process.
At the head of the new subsidiary is Tom Jessop, who was Fidelity’s head of corporate business development, and previously worked at blockchain start-up Chain.
For what it’s worth, we called it.
