Fidelity Investments Looking to Expand Digital Asset Trading Range

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According to recent reports, Fidelity Investments is considering the possibility of expanding its institutional crypto asset network to include additional trading services for other digital assets in addition to Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). The startup is looking at deploying more tokens from the top five or top seven digital currencies by market cap on its platform. The new tokens to be listed will be added to the already existing two on the network including Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH).

Fidelity Digital Asset Services to Carry the Mantle for Fidelity Investments

The news about the expansion in the company’s digital asset trading system was revealed today. A company spokesperson made this public knowledge at the Block FS conference, NY. This news came as a response to a question asked to Tom Jessop, the head of operations at Fidelity Digital Assets by CoinDesk. The question was; what other virtual currencies would be added to Fidelity’s platform? The new platform talked about here will be launched in 2019.

We can recall that last month; the buy side powerhouse revealed that it would launch a separate firm known as Fidelity Digital Asset Services. The new startup will be a separate entity from its parent company designed to provide custodian solutions for its clients and enabling the trading of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). According to Jessop:

“I believe there is more demand for the four or five top digital assets in rank of market capitalization order. Hence, Fidelity Digital Asset Services will be considering that.”

Fidelity is Adopting a Customer-Driven Approach to Make This Decision

The Fidelity executive explained that his company is implementing a customer-driven approach in this new endeavor. According to him, Fidelity’s 13,000-plus institutional customers are particularly interested in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) because both tokens make up a huge part of the current total market capitalization of the entire crypto market. Jessop said:

“I believe that when it comes to tokens that are more likely to be regarded as securities or security tokens, we are waiting for the space to develop fully,” he explained and went on to say that:

“Fidelity has had some interest in this regard but we do not believe it’s a groundswell kind of interest, so our primary focus is on the top digital assets by market capitalization. You can call it the top five to top seven. This will be the goal before we begin to build the capabilities for those at the tail. I think that time will come.”

About Fidelity Investments

Fidelity Investments has spent over four to five years in the digital asset space. The startup has a long view regarding the crypto asset class. It has a firm grasp of the underlying potential that the technology has to over. This is something that Jessop compared to the sweep of the internet.

The executive acknowledged that virtual assets hadn’t had a good run this year. But he also cited that the run-up last year for digital assets in prices saw that Fidelity’s charitable cryptocurrency donations vehicle realized $70 million in contributions. He called it a good story and an excellent source of contributions.


Source:  SMARTEREUM