Fidelity Digital Assets is opening a new entity that will provide enterprise-quality custody and trade execution services for digital assets such as Bitcoin and Ethereum to investors at European institutions, such as hedge funds, family offices and market intermediaries.
Launched in 2018, Fidelity Digital Assets already provides these services to US-based institutional investors.
Tom Jessop, head of Corporate Business Development for Fidelity Investments and president of Fidelity Digital Assets, says interest in digital assets among institutional investors is growing.
“Since launching Fidelity Digital Assets in the U.S. over a year ago, we’ve seen significant interest and engagement by the institutional community, which show no signs of slowing.
We’re also encouraged by continued corporate and venture investment in market infrastructure companies as well as the entry of traditional exchanges into the digital assets ecosystem. These and other market indicators, alongside interest expressed from UK and European client prospects, indicate a market with increasing potential which gives us the confidence to expand the digital assets business geographically.”
Fidelity says the following key offerings are crucial for advancing investment in the crypto ecosystem.
- Vaulted cold storage and institutional-grade custody of digital assets that give investors a secure and compliant way to store Bitcoin and other digital assets
- Trade execution venue that offers access to multiple sources of liquidity through a single platform
- Client support
The company has named Chris Tyrer, a former managing director at Barclays Investment Bank, as head of Fidelity Digital Assets in Europe.
Says Tyrer,
“The demand we’ve seen for Fidelity’s digital asset custody and trade execution services has been borderless, and we’re scaling our business to operate in a variety of jurisdictions to support this industry for the long-term. In doing so, we’re building on the commitment to make digitally-native assets, such as Bitcoin, more accessible to institutional investors.”
Fidelity Investments has over 30 million individual investors with $7.8 trillion in customer assets as of September 30, 2019. Its digital assets subsidiary is focused on delivering the new asset class to its institutional clients.
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