Financial services giant Fidelity Investments is seemingly unfazed by the recent downturn in the cryptocurrency markets. The Wall Street mainstay, which has over $2 trillion worth of assets under management, revealed Tuesday that it will be expanding its Bitcoin-centric services business to Europe, potentially providing this nascent market with an influx of capital.
Fidelity’s Bitcoin Custody & Trading Branch Expands Into Europe
According to a recent report from Financial News, Fidelity Digital Assets just incorporated a U.K.-based branch, giving the financial giant an opportunity to offer digital asset services to European clients, including “hedge funds and family offices.” Financial News reports that the new entity does not hold any regulatory permissions at the moment.
Announcing Fidelity Digital Assets, Ltd., for access to our services in Europe. https://t.co/3QuWbXDPrQ pic.twitter.com/XEYLZaJT8Y
— Fidelity Digital Assets (@DigitalAssets) December 17, 2019
According to a press release shared by Fidelity Digital Assets, this new firm will offer “access to enterprise-quality custody and trade execution services for digital assets to investors such as hedge funds, family offices and market intermediaries.”
Heading this new branch will be Chris Tyrer, who joins Fidelity from Barclays Investment Bank, where he served as a managing director and led the institution’s cryptocurrency-centric projects, which covered a span of niches. Tyrer, indicating that there is existing demand for Wall Street-grade cryptocurrency financial services in Europe, said:
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.
Fidelity’s decision to expand into Europe comes just a few weeks after the company managed to secure key licenses in the State of New York, which give it the offer to, say, custody the Bitcoin and other digital assets of New York clients. This is important, of course, because New York is the heart of American finance.
Ethereum Support Next
This news comes hot on the heels of reports that Fidelity intends to support Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, in 2020.
Per previous reports from Ethereum World News, Tom Jessop, president of the outfit, told industry outlet The Block that his firm has been hard at work on Ethereum support, and is thus looking to support the asset in 2020. Though, Jessop did indicate that they will only add the cryptocurrency if there is ample client demand.
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