According to a Wall Street Journal story, the world’s largest provider of financial services, Fidelity Investments, is exploring a step that would enable its individual brokerage clients to trade Bitcoin (BTC).
The WSJ cited “people familiar with the topic” and a statement made by Mike Novogratz, the CEO of Galaxy Holdings Ltd., one of Fidelity’s cryptocurrency clients, who hinted at Fidelity’s most recent aspirations in the space.
“A bird told me that Fidelity, a little bird in my ear, is going to shift their retail customers into crypto soon enough,” Novogratz was quoted as saying during a speech at the SALT Conference.
The move wouldn’t be Fidelity’s first foray into the cryptocurrency world; earlier this year, the financial services provider announced plans to let corporate clients add Bitcoin to 401(k) plans, a plan that drew criticism from the US Labor Department and US senators like Elizabeth Warren, a vocal opponent of cryptocurrencies.
Despite market downturns and greater regulatory scrutiny, Fidelity and other financial services firms like BlackRock, which started this year gave institutional investors access to Bitcoin through a partnership with Coinbase, continue to show institutional interest in cryptocurrencies.
According to data from June, Fidelity had almost 40 million individual investors and 2.8 million daily average trades.
