Fidelity is fully introducing digital asset custody and transaction services

This article from the Financial Times , the original author: Robin Wigglesworth

Abigail Johnson, chief executive of Fidelity, an investment group, said the company is pushing ahead with its cryptocurrency business. Even though the world of digital assets is chaotic, Fidelity is still trying to get a lot of large compliance from the field. Profit from the organization.

The Boston-based financial group, which manages $2.8 trillion in assets, announced the launch of Fidelity Digital Assets last fall, promising to provide "enterprise-level" for hedge funds, family funds and financial advisors involved in cryptocurrency. Hosting and Transaction Execution Services." In March of this year, Fidelity began offering bitcoin hosting services through its subsidiary Fidelity Digital Assets.

Johnson informed the Financial Times that Fidelity has increased its customers since the first quarter and is now fully rolling out its digital asset custody and trading services – a boon for a fragmented and complex industry:

• The 18 millionth BTC has been dug up, and the "empty anxiety" is the true eternal story of Bitcoin.
• Poloniex is stripped from Circle, Sun Yuchen is behind the new takeover agency
• German Finance Minister strongly opposes Facebook's Libra

"If you're either interested or good at technology, it's no big deal, but in terms of financial relationships with banks or brokerage firms, everything you do is just a breeze. These haven't been developed yet."

Johnson has been the CEO of the group since 2014. She believes that Fidelity's cryptocurrency hosting service is a big selling point. She specifically mentions the loss of the U disk and the death of the holder without telling their relatives' digital key. case.

“Some people hold a lot of cryptocurrency wealth (possibly bitcoin), they are looking for a host to hold these cryptocurrencies to prevent themselves from happening – after all, we can't avoid accidents – you need to have a plan to make These cryptocurrencies are transferred to others," Johnson explained.

Coinbase has stored billions of dollars worth of digital assets on behalf of its customers. Last year, it also launched its own third-party hosting business. But Johnson said that Coinbase "is still a company that most people have never heard of, and there is no existing relationship with independent consultants."

Fidelity Digital Assets has submitted an application to the New York State Department of Financial Services for operation as a limited purpose trust company, which will enable it to serve a wider range of organizations once the application is approved. . Previously, Coinbase was eligible for hosting with Gemini and Paxos in October last year.

According to Johnson, Fidelity's experiments in cryptocurrency and blockchain technology were initially "just for fun." The company explored several potential directions and even set up a small bitcoin mining company in 2014 for $200,000.

"At the time, some people in the finance department disagreed," Johnson remembers the scene.

Note: A series of cryptocurrency or blockchain experiments on Fidelity have been reported more than once. According to previous news, Twitter user Justin Moon said that there is a room in Fidelity's office filled with Bitcoin mining machine. This is not the first time that Fidelity has been involved in Bitcoin mining. Previously, when recording with Crapto podcast host Laura Shin, Tom Jessop, head of digital assets at Fidelity, said that as early as 2015, the company's CEO, Abigail Johnson, tapped bitcoin in his office.

In addition, Jessop said that one of the company's R&D departments has even tested the internal bitcoin payment network. Since then, Fidelity has announced the launch of an encrypted hosting service and plans to launch Bitcoin trading services, only for Bitcoin. It is reported that Fidelity began researching BTC in 2014. It has conducted BTC use trials in its in-house restaurants and started bitcoin mining in 2015, and obtained hundreds of BTCs.

In addition, there were reports on July 9 that Fidelity's international investment subsidiary, Fidelity Internetiaonal, is also exploring the use of blockchain technology or is considering entering the cryptocurrency market. According to informed sources, the staff of the company's international business departments are participating in the investigation of the technical basis of cryptocurrency. In addition, the company launched a game that allows employees to simulate trading cryptocurrencies and provide cash rewards for those who perform best.

In the end, Fidelity decided to use hosting as the best startup platform, which was encouraged by some existing financial advisory clients who wanted to use the company's infrastructure to make cryptocurrency investments for their customers.

Although there are still many doubts about cryptocurrencies in many areas of the financial services industry, Johnson believes that a valuable business can be built in this area. "It (the cryptocurrency) won't go away. As long as the value exists, people will seek to maintain that value," Johnson said.

We will continue to update Blocking; if you have any questions or suggestions, please contact us!