Fidelity Investments plans to give its 34 million clients access to bitcoin trading. This is big news, as Fidelity is among the largest asset managers in the world. Indeed, Fidelity manages 4.44 trillion euros in assets, putting it behind of only BlackRock (~10 trillion), Charles Schwab (8 trillion) and Vanguard (7.1 trillion).
Fidelity and bitcoin
Fidelity’s plan to give its 34.4 million individual accounts access to bitcoin trading is not its first venture into the industry.
Indeed, in 2018 it already opened the doors to bitcoin for hedge funds and institutional investors on its platform. In addition, earlier this year it announced the possibility for corporate clients to invest part of their pension pots in bitcoin.
Fidelity has long been in the crypto industry. It seems that CEO Abigail Johnson was already hosting weekly discussions about bitcoin and crypto a decade ago.
Based on that, it should also come as no surprise that Fidelity began in 2015 with the mining bitcoin. Funny thing is that Fidelity employees have also been able to buy their lunch or coffee for years checkout with bitcoin in the asset manager’s cafeteria.
It is clear that Fidelity saw potential in the technology from the early days of bitcoin. Later, the company also started mining Ethereum, but the focus now is clearly on bitcoin.
After all, that is an established asset and, according to Fidelity, the digital gold of the industry.
It’s all about rumors
Let it be clear that Fidelity’s grand plans are rumors for now. Fidelity itself has not yet shared these plans with its customers. It is expected that every step it takes toward bitcoin will be followed with great interest from Washington, the political center of the United States.
Indeed, the announcement made earlier this year about including bitcoin in U.S. pension pots was also critically received in Washington.
Several U.S. senators expressed doubts about the plan after that announcement. In particular, the volatility of bitcoin was mentioned as a risk factor. This makes sense, as the volatility of bitcoin can make it risky to invest your pension in it. Especially if you want to retire in the relatively short term.
On the other hand, it is possible to take volatility into account. After all, the possibility of investing in bitcoin does not mean that everyone will immediately put their entire pension into bitcoin.
Michael Saylor is enthusiastic
It should come as no surprise that MicroStrategy top executive Michael Saylor is excited about the rumor that Fidelity wants to introduce bitcoin to its more than 34 million customers.
MicroStrategy has 129,699 bitcoin on its balance sheet at the time of writing. If Fidelity does indeed follow through on these plans, it is quite possible that a fair amount of capital will flow towards bitcoin, which can only be positive for the stock price.
Read Also: Microstrategy outperforms 97% of S&P 500 stocks despite bitcoin crash
In that respect, this news can only be good for “bitcoiners”. Ultimately, it remains to be seen if Mike Novogratz’s words, see the first tweet in the article, prove to be true. “One little bird whispered in my ear that Fidelity is pushing its retail customers toward bitcoin soon,” Novogratz spoke at the SALT conference. None of this sounds very certain yet, but here’s what we’ll have to do for now.
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