Fidelity is planning a hiring spree to add ether trading and custody services to its cryptocurrency business. “As the demand for digital assets continues to steadily grow and the marketplace evolves, we will continue to expand our hiring efforts,” a Fidelity executive explained.
Fidelity Expanding Crypto Services
Fidelity Investments’ digital assets subsidiary, Fidelity Digital Assets, is expanding its services.
Founded in 2018, Fidelity Digital Assets currently employs about 200 people. The company is looking to fill 110 new positions to focus on assets beyond bitcoin, a spokesperson for Fidelity told Reuters Tuesday.
Tom Jessop, president of Fidelity Digital Assets, commented:
As the demand for digital assets continues to steadily grow and the marketplace evolves, we will continue to expand our hiring efforts.
According to Fidelity’s product manager, Terrence Dempsey, Fidelity Digital Assets has around 400 clients, including registered investment advisers, hedge funds, and asset managers.
So far, the company has only been offering institutional investors the ability to store and trade bitcoin.
Jessop explained that the new hires will help build out infrastructure to support custody and trading services for ether.
Fidelity’s expansion announcement came as the crypto market shed nearly $500 billion over the past month. However, the executive noted that declines in crypto prices have not significantly impacted the firm’s business and the company is focused on long-term indicators, such as demand from clients. He was quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying:
We’re trying not to focus on the downturns and focus on some of the long-term indicators … We are trying to build infrastructure for the future because we measure success over years and decades, not weeks and months.
Last month, Fidelity Investments announced that it has added bitcoin as an investment option for 401(k) retirement plans.
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