Fidelity Is Considering Offering Bitcoin to Retail Investors: WSJ

Fidelity customers may soon be able to buy Bitcoin via the company’s brokerage platform, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

Boston-based investment giant Fidelity, which manages over 34.4 million retail accounts and is one of the world’s biggest fund managers, is evaluating whether to offer Bitcoin to its individual investors, the newspaper reported Monday. 

The Journal added that the company has not yet shared the plans with its clients. Fidelity has an app that allows its retail customers to manage their investments from their phones. 

Fidelity did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s request for a comment. But Galaxy Digital CEO Mike Novogratz said earlier today at New York’s SALT forum that he had heard rumors of the firm’s plans. 

“A bird told me, a little bird in my ear, told me Fidelity is going to shift its retail customers into crypto soon enough,” he said. “I hope that bird is right.”

He tied Fidelity’s reported plans to those recently announced by global investment firms Franklin Templeton and BlackRock Solutions as part of a “constant march of institutional adoption of Bitcoin.”

Fidelity has been delving into the world of crypto for some time now. In April, news broke that Fidelity, which is also America’s largest provider of 401(k) savings accounts, would launch a product that allows workers to save 20% of retirement funds in Bitcoin. 

The firm also launched two new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) this year that give clients exposure to companies in the crypto and metaverse space. It has also filed an application with the SEC to launch a Bitcoin ETF that would, if approved, give customers direct exposure to the digital asset. 

Last year, Fidelity global macro director Jurrien Timmer said that the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap had a “unique advantage over gold.”

“Bitcoin is gaining credibility, and as a digital analog of gold but with greater convexity, my guess is that bitcoin will, over time, take more market share from gold,” he said.