By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 25th, 2024
Citing high client demand, Fidelity Digital Assets is actively planning to support the Ethereum cryptocurrency starting next year in 2020.
Fidelity Digital Assets, the digital currency arm of financial giant Fidelity Investments, plans to add support for Ether token next year in 2020. Tom Jessop, the president of Fidelity Digital Assets, made the announcement during an interview with The Block last Saturday, December 13.
Jessop added that the final decision of Fidelity Digital Assets depends only upon evaluating the market demand for ETH support. Launched earlier this year, Fidelity Digital Assets specializes in offering cryptocurrency trading tools and custody solutions for institutional investors. Currently, the company only supports Bitcoin. However, to expand its market reach, it is looking at other crypto offerings as well.
During the interview, Jessop 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.”
Reasons behind Slower Institutional Crypto Adoption
Jessop also mentioned a few reasons for the slower institutional adoption of digital currencies. He mentioned some of the major obstacles like lack of regulatory clarity, extreme price volatility, and stressed majorly on the absence of track record. As Bitcoin has the largest track record, there are more institutional players interested in it. Further explaining his concern, Jessop said:
“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.”
Ethereum Gives Flat Returns
Ethereum’s performance this year hasn’t been much impressive as it is trading at flat levels since the start of 2019. At press time ETH is trading at a price of $141 with a market cap of $15.39 billion. Ethereum started the year at $135 which means less than 5% gains at the current price.
Along with Bitcoin, Ethereum also participated in the crypto market rally starting April 2019. During Q2 2019, ETH surged nearly 100% to hit its 2019-high of $312. However, it soon lost steam and lost 50% since then. The Ethereum developers have been working hard to improve network scalability and capacity.
On the other hand, Fidelity Digital Assets continues to move forward with its progress in the crypto space. The Boston-based financial giant is all set to launch its first exchange by the end of this year. Previously, Jessop said that the exchange will focus on targetting OTC platforms as liquidity providers.
Last month, Fidelity Digital Assets also secured its trading license from the New York State Department of Financial Services. This license allows Fidelity Digital Assets to work with local New York-based companies and offer them trading and custody solutions.