Fidelity to launch crypto trading within weeks, report says

A common theme in cryptocurrency circles in the last couple of years has been the one of institutional investors entering the space. However, certain key players, including Intercontinental Exchange-backed crypto market Bakkt, have postponed their launch. 

But a new, big player might join the fray soon. On Monday, Bloomberg reported that finance services behemoth Fidelity Investments will launch a cryptocurrency trading service “within a few weeks.”

According to the report, which cites a person familiar with the matter, Fidelity’s offering will focus on institutional customers only. In contrast, brokerage firm E*Trade is said to be launching crypto trading for retail investors, while another brokerage firm Robinhood already did so in December 2018. 

The news comes a few weeks after a survey, commissioned by Fidelity, has shown that 47% of institutional investors said digital assets such as Bitcoin are worth investing in. 

Fidelity told Bloomberg that it’s already offering Bitcoin to a “select set of clients” and that it plans to continue to roll out such services “over the coming weeks and months.”

Fidelity is one of largest financial services and investment firms in the world, with $6.7 trillion in total customer assets as of December 2018, $2.8 trillion of which come from institutional investors. 

The fact that big institutional players mostly aren’t investing into crypto assets yet isn’t entirely surprising. Several attempts to launch a Bitcoin-based Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) in 2018 and 2019 have fallen through, as the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) either rejected or delayed its decision on such proposals, mostly over concerns of market manipulation. And there has been plenty of that recently. A recent report by crypto index fund Bitwise had found that 95 percent of Bitcoin trading volume is fake. And in April, cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex and stablecoin Tether (a special type of cryptocurrency whose value is tied to the value of a real-world asset, like the U.S. dollar) were accused of covering up the loss of $850 million in customer funds by using Tether cash reserves. 

The price of Bitcoin (and most other major cryptocurrencies) has jumped roughly 80% after hitting a low point of $3,196 in December 2018. Bitcoin is currently trading at $5,704.5 according to CoinMarketCap. 

Disclosure: The author of this story owns, or has recently owned, a number of cryptocurrencies, including BTC and ETH.