Fidelity announces a new company called Fidelity Digital Asset Services that will handle cryptocurrency custody and trade execution for institutional investors

cnbc.com

Fidelity just made it easier for hedge funds and other pros to invest in cryptocurrencies

Financial services giant Fidelity is taking a huge step into cryptocurrency.

The 72-year-old firm announced the launch of a separate company, Fidelity Digital Asset Services, on Monday that will handle cryptocurrency custody and trade execution for institutional investors.

"Our goal is to make digitally native assets, such as bitcoin, more accessible to investors," Fidelity Investments Chairman and CEO Abigail Johnson said in a press release. "We expect to continue investing and experimenting, over the long-term, with ways to make this emerging asset class easier for our clients to understand and use."

Tom Jessop, head of Fidelity Digital Assets, said the idea of commercializing a standalone crypto company began in the middle of last year.

For now, its services are available to institutions such as hedge funds, endowments and family offices but not to the retail investor.

"We saw that there were certain things institutions needed that only a firm like Fidelity could provide," Jessop told CNBC, adding that it already works with 13,000 institutional clients. "We've got some technology that we've repurposed from other parts of Fidelity — we can leverage all of the resources of a big organization."

Fidelity is nothing if not big. It administers $7.2 trillion in customer assets, has 27 million customers, and spends $2.5 billion per year on technology, partially through incubators that house its artificial intelligence and blockchain projects. The new digital asset company was born out of Fidelity Center for Applied Technology, or FCAT as employees call it.

The new company will handle custody, or how to safely store digital assets. Crypto companies Coinbase, Gemini (run by the Winklevoss twins), BitGo, Ledger and ItBit are among those already working on similar solutions. Japanese bank Nomura also announced plans in May to offer crypto custody, and Goldman Sachs and Northern Trust are reportedly exploring custodial services. But until now, there's been a noticeable lack of a big U.S.-based incumbent like Fidelity officially entering the space.

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In future if bitcoin is allowed in countries around the world and most online based companies will start to allow bitcoin as their payment currency/gateway/exchange. But what do you think if we would be allowed to transfer our money to our bitcoin wallet from our bank accounts like PayPal does? Will it be a good thing for banks and us?

For those of you that think that Bitcoin is going down this article proves that it's still the strongest in the cryptocurrency world. Not since December 2017 has Bitcoin been such a dominant part of cryptocurrency.
Full article here: https://bitcoinist.com/cryptocurrency-market-54-bitcoin/

If crypto currency regulated with rules and regularions then it would be better for itself as people will do more investment on it and the popularity will increase more.

The blockchain technology is quite impressive. Bitcoin is solely based on this technology. This blockchain techmology has enough strong features to be considered as a phenomenal technology.

yes, when bitcoin becomes rare, then bitcoin prices will be very expensive, bitcoin will be sought by everyone in the world. but the whales will get more advantages.

Specifically in the next 5 years, what do you think will be the greatest challenge or problem that the crypto market will face, and how do you think the market will overcome this problem? I also wonder if AI can help crypto trading safer and free from hacking and scamming?

Binance Will Support #AION ( $AION) Mainnet Token Swap
https://t.co/Yqb70EcGlg https://t.co/86fhPIAVIg

Bitcoin Classic rolls out, and days later there is no word about it in the News Media.

Mike Hearn declares Bitcoin dead and within hours it is in the New York Times.....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/business/dealbook/the-bitcoin-believer-who-gave-up.html

Mark my words: Bitcoin is getting ready to be in a fight for it's life.

On one side are the Blockstream/Core players.  Liars, manipulators, shill, not afraid to destroy the fabric of Bitcoin with every bit of FUD they can dredge up - even if it kills bitcoin, but if they can't have total control, no one can.

On the other side you have Mike Hearn w/R3CEV/Hyperledger/Banks (AND Mainstream Media & Govt backing - don't forget that!)

We are at the start of a foot race to see who gets ready forst for the upcoming global financial meltdown. 

It's pretty clear that Bitcoin Classic will prevail in the upcoming March Fork given the huge amount of support / concensus for it.  But Blockstream seems to wat to make this a do or die fight, and they appear to be willing to destroy the good name of bitcoin if they don't get their way.  The looming battle may be the perfect backdrop of confusion and chaos for a Fiat Coin to rise from the shadows, and with the help of Gov't & Media nods - be introduced to the masses.

Fasten your seatbelts kiddies.... this is going to be a wild ride.  Right now I am betting 50% on Classic / 50% on Fiat Coin.  Current 1mb Blockstream/Core Coin not even worth mentioning in my opinion.  I see 0.001%.

I heard the news, that banks are afraid of bitcoin and can replace banks, because the excess of bitcoin is much compared to local banks

Thrive Update - October 12, 2018
Greetings from Thrive Labs team !
Here is the latest on recent marketplace developments and other news from Thrive Labs!
https://medium.com/@thriveico/thrive-update-october-12-2018-1edbb83f3672
 

In the spirit of mass adoption we are likely going to see the death of PayPal and other payment gateways. Do you foresee the death of PayPal soon by Bitcoin? At some point people would want to feel safe in not tying their credit cards to any online payment gateway. Your thoughts?