Fidelity Plans to Expand Crypto Custody Beyond Bitcoin and Ether
Fidelity Investments, a huge multinational financial firm intends to widen its range of services to include trading services for the top five to seven cryptocurrencies. The firm may expand crypto trading beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Tom Jessop, the head of Fidelity Digital Assets commented that the company is considering the requirement of the top five cryptocurrencies in the market and may potentially integrate support for the remaining assets. He stated, “I think there is demand for the next four or five in the rank of market cap order. So we will be looking at that.”
He elaborated that Fidelity has a customer-driven perspective and that its 13,000-plus institutional clients are interested in bitcoin and ether because they make up a large part of the current market cap. He said, “I think when it comes to security tokens or tokens that are likely to be deemed securities, we are waiting for that space to develop.”
While talking about the inclusion of more crypto assets, Jessop unveiled, “We have had some interest but we don’t think it’s a groundswell of interest, so our focus is really on the top, call it five-seven, before we start building capabilities for the tail. But I think it will come.”
Moreover, Fidelity has given around five years to R&D in the crypto space and is far-sighted about the emerging technology. Jessop compares this to the exponential sweep of the internet. With that, he also admits that this year has not been great for digital assets.
He noted that a year ago, the run-up in prices witnessed Fidelity’s charitable crypto donations vehicle garner some $70 million in contributions. He concluded stating, “It was a great story and a great source of donations.”
It can be assumed that the expansion of Fidelity by adding crypto assets on its platform will require changes to its infrastructure and the structure of its custodian solution.
Meanwhile, massive financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs and State Street are hoping for regulatory clarity and also significant demand from customers regarding cryptocurrency.
