Fidelity Leads Major Firms in Offering Crypto Services, Seeing Payoff After Early Bitcoin Bets

Fidelity was an early pioneer in crypto, allowing employees to pay in Bitcoin at the cafeteria in 2017 and mining Bitcoin since 2014. But the crypto experiments didn't initially gain much traction.

Fidelity officially launched crypto custody and trading services in 2018-2019, becoming the first major financial services firm to do so. It has focused on providing a familiar investing experience.

Fidelity's Bitcoin ETF has attracted nearly $7 billion in assets, making it the 2nd most popular spot Bitcoin ETF behind BlackRock. Fidelity serves as its own custodian.

Fidelity hopes to expand into other cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin and Ethereum, offer staking services, and explore tokenization. But regulations remain a key obstacle.

As a privately-held firm with a long-term outlook, Fidelity has been able move faster on crypto than public competitors. Its multi-year head start has given it a competitive edge.