Fidelity Investments doubled down on its cryptocurrency efforts after its brokerage arm – Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC – offered an Ethereum Index Fund to clients.
The product has raised around $5 million since sales started at the end of September, while outside investors can participate in the initiative with a minimum investment of $50,000.
Fidelity’s Next Crypto Step
One of the largest entities in its field (with over $4.5 trillion in assets under management) received the US SEC’s approval to register its Fidelity Ethereum Index Fund.
According to the filing, the first sale occurred on September 26, and since then, the feature has raised approximately $5 million.
Fidelity displayed its intentions to offer the fund for more than one year and asserted that it will not be a subject of a future business combination transaction, including a merger, acquisition, or exchange offer.
Speaking of an Index Fund, it is worth mentioning that it is quite different than an Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) as it trades only once per day (once the markets close).
The US-based asset manager started its crypto journey in 2014 when it began mining bitcoin. Four years later, it launched Fidelity Digital Assets – a platform and investment solution that helps individuals access cryptocurrency services and products.
In April this year, the company made the headlines by enabling investors to add bitcoin to their retirement 401(k) accounts. Speaking on the initiative, Dave Gray – Head of Workplace Retirement Product and Platforms – said:
“Fidelity believes that blockchain technology and digital assets are going to be a much larger part of the financial industry’s future.”
The firm further revealed that its first client for the new offering was MicroStrategy. The business intelligence, spearheaded by Michael Saylor, is the largest BTC corporate holder owning 130,000 coins.
The Company’s Other Crypto Initiatives
Some reports in the middle of September indicated that Fidelity might bring bitcoin trading to individual investors on its brokerage platform. If seeing the light of day, the offering would grant over 34 million retail customers access to the primary cryptocurrency.
A few days later, Fidelity Digital Assets and other giants in the financial sector, such as Citadel Securities, Charles Schwab, Sequoia Capital, Paradigm, and Virtu Financial, introduced a crypto exchange called EDX Markets (EDXM).
The trading venue quickly amassed some prominent names as part of its executive structure. For example, its CEO – Jamil Nazarali – is a former Global Head of Business Development at Citadel Securities, while General Counsel David Forman served as Chief Legal Officer at Fidelity Brokerage Services.
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