Fidelity Digital Assets to expand staff amid institutional interest in cryptocurrency

Fidelity Investments’ digital assets unit will expand its staff by around 70% to support cryptocurrency projects in response to institutional demand. This is reported by Bloomberg.

Fidelity Digital Assets chief Tom Jessop told the publication that plans include hiring up to 100 people in Dublin, Boston and Salt Lake City. He said the firm has previously focused only on Bitcoin, and the move would broaden its attention to other digital assets.

“Bitcoin reached a record high above $63,000 earlier this year; other cryptocurrencies, including Ethereum, also rose […]. We are seeing interest in Ether, so we want to stay ahead of this demand,” said Jessop.

He added that most traditional markets close in the latter half of the day or on weekends. Fidelity aims to offer clients more steady cryptocurrency trading.

Jessop pointed to institutional investors’ interest in Bitcoin, Ethereum and other assets. In his view, demand for them is only growing.

A Fidelity survey conducted in 2020 showed that nearly a third of the firm’s major clients in Europe and the United States added digital assets to their portfolios.

At that time the firm announced expanding the staff with developers experienced in working with Amazon Web Services, Java programmers and data engineers.

In April 2021, Jessop suggested that digital gold had reached a tipping point in institutional adoption.

Later, the Chicago Board Options Exchange filed an application to list Fidelity Investments’ Bitcoin-ETF. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission began reviewing it in late May.

In June, Fidelity allowed for a drop in the price of the first cryptocurrency to $23,000.

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