The head of sales and marketing at Fidelity Digital Assets, Christine Sandler, says Fidelity will greatly expand its crypto offerings in the future – the big question is when.
In a new interview on the Unchained Podcast, Sandler says the investment giant, which currently offers Bitcoin investment services to institutional clients, is constantly analyzing the retail sector. When asked if Fidelity will serve retail clients, Sandler called such a launch “inevitable.”
“Of course. Inevitable. We think about it all of the time, and we do get, look, and we do obviously, get a lot of inbound interest from retail clients. And as we said before though, for us to be a really great institutional provider, we have to remain focused on this institutional client and not to take away from that focus…
It’s not on the near-term roadmap to offer access to retail. Retail has some wonderful robust options, whether it’s players like PayPal and Square that are known to them where they use them all the time, or a more digitally native offering like Coinbase.”
When it comes to supporting other crypto assets, Sandler says Ethereum is currently on the road map, along with support for staking – although a launch date has not been set.
“It’s clearly on the road map, Laura. I would be remiss if I could state a date, but definitely on the road map…
I think to be a digital asset custodian, and offering proof of stake assets, you definitely have to offer staking services. It puts you at a disadvantage, so I would expect us to build up those services once we can support Ethereum.”
Sandler says the focus among large investors in the crypto space remains centered on the leading cryptocurrency, Bitcoin.
“To be quite candid, most of what we hear is Bitcoin. On occasion, we do hear from investors that are seeking access to Ethereum, but most of what we still hear is Bitcoin. So, the predominant institutional narrative is around Bitcoin.”
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