Fidelity Investments is launching a platform for retail investors to trade cryptocurrency, a competitive push by the asset manager into a space crowded with players including Coinbase and Robinhood.
Fidelity, a Wall Street stalwart, announced on 3 November that it would allow individual investors to buy, sell, and hold bitcoin and ether through Fidelity Crypto, a brokerage service that puts crypto and traditional investments in one place. Investors will be able to invest as little as $1 and trading will be fee-free.
The asset manager has opened up an early-access list for customers to reserve a spot ahead of a wider release of crypto trading services. Fidelity didn’t give an exact date for when it would make digital asset trading widely available, and said factors including state eligibility could impact waiting times.
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“Where our customers invest matters more than ever. A meaningful portion of Fidelity customers are already interested in and own crypto. We are providing them with tools to support their choice, so they can benefit from Fidelity’s education, research, and technology,” a Fidelity spokesperson said in a statement.
This is only the latest push into crypto from Fidelity, which has offered digital asset services to institutional clients since 2018 and this year made a splash by allowing corporate clients to include bitcoin in 401(k) plans.
With more than 34 million customers with brokerage accounts, Fidelity is likely to represent a competitive threat to other brokers.
The field of regulated crypto brokers or trading platforms is crowded in the US, largely with smaller rivals like Robinhood Coinbase, in addition to privately-held crypto-native firms like FTX.US and Binance.US.
Write to Jack Denton at jack.denton@barrons.com
This article was published by Barron’s, a fellow Dow Jones Group title
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