Fidelity’s Crypto Arm to Provide ‘Institutional Ethereum Capabilities’

Fidelity Digital Assets – the cryptocurrency subsidiary of the finance giant Fidelity Investments – will allow its institutional clients to trade Ether (ETH).

The service will be available on the company’s crypto platform from October 28, 2022.

Fidelity Expands its Crypto Scope

Earlier this month, the company doubled down on its cryptocurrency efforts by introducing an Ethereum Index Fund.

In a recent Twitter announcement, Fidelity Digital Assets revealed the launch of “Ethereum capabilities” to institutional clients, which will be able to buy, sell, and transfer ETH. The new feature, available from October 28, will be based on the “same operational excellence, robust security, and dedicated client service model provided for bitcoin investments,” the firm added.

Fidelity Digital Assets just sent an email to customers announcing that Ethereum will be available for purchase this month. pic.twitter.com/3V0GCrOt5z

— Bruce Fenton 🇺🇸 (@brucefenton) October 19, 2022

Fidelity outlined that numerous investors have started seeing ETH “through a new lens” after the Merge was officially completed. On September 15, the protocol became the first to shift from Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus algorithm to Proof-of-Stake (PoS).

Fidelity’s Bitcoin Forays

The organization has been actively engaging with the primary cryptocurrency for numerous years. It began mining BTC in 2014 and established its crypto subsidiary Fidelity Digital Assets, four years later.

In April, it enabled investors to add the asset to their 401(k) retirement accounts. Dave Gray – Head of Workplace Retirement Product and Platforms – said Fidelity supports blockchain technology and believes “digital assets are going to be a much larger part of the financial industry’s future.”

A month later, Fidelity Digital Assets said it will hire 110 developers and engineers and 100 customer-service specialists to support the firm’s crypto products and assist clients when dealing with them.

Contrary to the aforementioned hiring spree, multiple companies in the space dismissed staff due to the harsh consequences of the bear market. Such examples are Coinbase, CryptoCom, Bybit, Huobi, Gemini, and more.

Last month, some reports hinted that Fidelity might provide bitcoin trading to individual investors on its brokerage platform. Once it goes live, it would grant the firm’s 34 million retail customers access to BTC.