Another institutional giant is gearing up to make its way into the crypto space marking the change in Wall Street’s opinion on the digital asset revolution.
Investment Giant Fidelity Takes First Steps Into Crypto
Boston based investment institution Fidelity has announced that it is hiring engineers to “create and deploy a Digital Asset exchange.” Wide-ranging reports register this as a major step towards the validation of the crypto space as a legitimate financial ecosystem.
The mega-firm which handles multi-trillion dollars in investment funds is vetting staff in order to develop “first-in-class custodian services for Bitcoin and other digital currencies.” according to Business Insider.
The firm under the leadership of CEO Abigail Johnson has been reportedly giving the digital asset class a long and serious if quiet look. Johnson was quoted at a cryptocurrency meeting in May as saying;
“I’m a believer, I’m one of the few standing before you today from a large financial services company that has not given up on digital currencies.”
Presently a select group of clients can integrate their Coinbase accounts to their Fidelity portfolios which allows them to check on their digital assets along with other holdings present on the Fidelity platform. Whether the forthcoming exchange will exist within the current platform or parallel to it is still unknown as the company has yet to release any specific details, including the launch date.
Previous to the announcement of the exchange the firm has made inroads into the crypto space through venture investments and has been maintaining a cryptocurrency mining operation that CEO Johnson said is “actually making a lot of money” though it was initially put together for research. In addition, Fidelity’s charitable organization allows donors to contribute using Bitcoin and collected $22 million worth of cryptocurrency in 2017 alone.
Wall Street Firms May Force Regulation Settlement
Fidelity’s announcement is another major marker on the path to legitimacy for cryptocurrency. Along with Goldman Sachs, another financial world giant, institutions like Fidelity taking positions in the crypto market may be the most effective way to settle regulatory problems among the various governing bodies in the US. A movement which could set precedence for countries around the world to come to terms with how to manage the trading of digital currencies.
Josh McIver, CEO of ULedger, reinforced this possibility when he told BI;
“When a firm like Fidelity commits significant resources to open a digital asset exchange, it reaffirms the growing demand for regulatory compliant conduits for crypto assets. The crypto space is quickly becoming more and more mainstream as the assets have proven to be more than just a fad. The advent of security token exchanges will be another big step in mainstream adoption of these revolutionary assets.”
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