Fidelity Investments has launched a new business to allow its institutional clients to trade in digital currencies such as bitcoin, a press release reveals. Known as Fidelity Digital Asset Services, LLC, the company will purchase and sell cryptocurrencies for family offices, hedge funds and other monetary ventures.All coins will be sourced from large, over-the-counter digital exchanges and housed using cold storage to ensure customer funds always remain safe. To start, Fidelity’s services will be limited to bitcoin and ether, though representatives say they’re looking to expand their offerings in 2019. “Our goal is to make digitally native assets, such as bitcoin, much more accessible to investors,” chairman and chief executive of Fidelity, Abigail Johnson, said in a statement. Volatility in crypto prices, along with the lack of custody and other banking services witnessed in the digital currency space, is a point of concern for institutional investors, one that has prevented many of them from feeling comfortable enough to take part in the cryptocurrency space. Fidelity is hoping to change all that by allowing trades and sales in a more traditional, regulated environment and boosting the market maturity of both bitcoin and ether. Fidelity Digital Assets already has 100 employees on its roster, and it will be headed by Tom Jessop, managing director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and former president of the ...
