Fidelity Digital Assets to Consider Rolling Out Ether Support in 2020

Tom Jessop, the president of Fidelity Digital Assets, the cryptocurrency trading arm of United States financial services giant Fidelity, announced that the firm may add support for Ether (ETH) in 2020 is there is sufficient demand for it.

During an interview with industry news outlet TheBlock published on Dec. 13, Jessop answered questions about the firm. When asked about the possibility Fidelity Digital Asset may support Ether in the future, he said:

“We've done a lot of work on Ethereum. We intend to support it in the New Year. We're very led by our clients.”

Institutional crypto adoption

Jessop also said that the main obstacles to institutional crypto adoption are price volatility, lack of regulatory clarity, and perhaps most importantly, absence of track record. He explained that he believes these problems will be alleviated with time:

“Meaning like, ‘How do I know that if I buy this thing, it's gonna be around tomorrow? Like what indicia of durability or longevity do I have based on the fact that the history of this asset is 10 years old?’ I think many of these things solve themselves with time.”

Fidelity’s cryptocurrency trading — and custody — platform launched with a select group of clients in March. The platform is not meant for retail investors. Instead, it focuses on hedge funds, family offices, pensions, endowments, other institutional investors. 

In October Fidelity’s personal investing president Kathleen Murphy said that the firm does not offer cryptocurrencies on retail trading platforms to protect its clients from the risky market.

As Bitcoin institutional adoption already started, trading platforms fight to bring Ether to institutions. As Cointelegraph reported in mid-October, Ether futures could be the next mechanism to drive crypto market expansion.