2013-12-13 Market Watch - Fidelity halts bitcoin investments

[bitone]

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/2013/12/12/fidelity-halts-bitcoin-investments-from-iras/

[marcus_of_augustus]

I think this story is significant and a good investigative journalist who went digging would find some verrrry interesting ructions in the background here.

One of the biggest pension fund operations allows bitcoin investments one day and the next it halts them? Who's peddling influence here? Who's pulling the strings? Is it the Federal Reserve bureaucrats acting outside their lawful mandate? Is it a cartel of banks pressuring a fund provider?

Smells like corruption and possible illegal activity behind the scenes here to me. These boyz have to be real careful in their unseemly internal battle over bitcoin that their usual modus operandi doesn't spill out into the streets for all to see their ugliness and criminality.

Fidelity had $4.2 trillion in assets under administration as of Aug. 31, according to the firm’s website.

Couldn't have 0.1% of this pie leaving dollar denominated assets now could we?

[I_bitcoin]

I think the story is not quite right.   My sources at Fidelity said something more along the lines of "we are still researching/reviewing."   

[stompix]

I think the story is not quite right.   My sources at Fidelity said something more along the lines of "we are still researching/reviewing."   

That means they are not currently investing. So , there is nothing wrong with the title.

[TraderTimm]

The upshot of this whole thing is that it even saw the light of day, whether it was an internal project that got leaked inappropriately or not, it shows that some of the financial heavyweights are weighing Bitcoin to see how they can fold it into their product offerings and portfolios.

So while most of the Bitcoin haters are crowing over the retraction, the main point here is - even if Fidelity ultimately decides not to work with Bitcoin, it only means it is a matter of time before someone else does, and I think that makes sense given the trends in visibility and overall Bitcoin awareness.

In a year or so, we'll laugh at someone if they don't know what Bitcoin is. What was strange and geeky is now making its inroads into other areas we can only guess at.