Millions of Fidelity Clients Can Now Purchase Bitcoin and Ether
As its crypto investment offering goes live to the public, allowing for commission-free trades in eligible U.S. states.
Fidelity Investments‘ crypto offering, which was previously accessible through waitlist only, has quietly gone live for the public — based on early reports from The Block.
With nearly $10 trillion USD in assets under administration, the continued push into the realm of Web3 and crypto by the financial service provider is a significant one. That being said, the public launch of its crypto offering has not been shared on any of its social channels but Hypemoon has confirmed that accounts are available to be opened on its website at the time of writing.
Fidelity’s under-the-radar approach could be due to massive turbulence in the Traditional Finance (TradFi) sector, between the bank run on SVB, as well as the failures from crypto-friendly banks Silvergate and Signature. Although, according to a recent Bloomberg article, this has played in the favor of Fidelity, with a variety of prospective clients reaching out for help.
One crypto executive stated that “Fidelity isn’t a traditional bank, but they’re certainly safer than the tier-two-and-beyond banks,” adding that they had already referred nearly 25 crypto-focused companies to the wealth manager in the span of a few days.
Fidelity has shown that it is very interested in crypto and Web3, filing patents for NFT and Metaverse use cases in December of 2022. The patents covered areas including marketplaces, Metaverse investment services, virtual real estate investing, and crypto trading — the last of which is now live.
With the launch of its crypto trading offering, millions of interested users in eligible U.S. states can now buy, sell, and trade Bitcoin and Ether — completely commission free.
Finally got around to opening up a Fidelity Crypto account
Bought some eth pic.twitter.com/3Ryvg8GOso
— Frank Chaparro (@fintechfrank) March 15, 2023
Through this offering, the wealth manager which boasts over 37 million retail accounts, has put itself ahead of the competition, with most other TradFi entities still not offering direct exposure to crypto for clients.
In addition to investment opportunities, the publicly available crypto app from Fidelity also offers educational material and a 24/7 virtual assistant.
In other news, Circle’s $3.3 Billion USDC reserve at SVB is purportedly free of risk.
