Despite the dire headlines over the cryptocurrency market, Fidelity Digital Asset Services LLC is doubling down on its commitment to crypto. The Fidelity Investments subsidiary’s president Tom Jessop told the Wall Street Journal that they’re looking to hire 110 tech workers, including engineers and developers with blockchain expertise, to build digital infrastructure to support services for cryptocurrencies beyond Bitcoin. It also plans to add 100 customer-service specialists.
The tech hires will help build out infrastructure to support custody and trading services for ether, the digital currency on the Ethereum network. The platform was built to handle the storing, securing, and trading of bitcoin.
The team will also migrate platform data and applications to the cloud to support faster transactions, and 24-hour trading support, and ensure the platform continues to offer institutional-grade security as it grows.
Cryptocurrency has seen a steep drop in prices in recent weeks. One cryptocurrency has collapsed, been relaunched, and is already crashing. Still, Fidelity Digital Assets plans to keep investing in technology that supports crypto trading.
“We’re trying not to focus on the downturns and focus on some of the long-term indicators,” Jessop said. “We are trying to build infrastructure for the future because we measure success over years and decades, not weeks and months.”
Fidelity recently launched the Fidelity Crypto Industry and Digital Payments ETF (FDIG ) and the Fidelity Metaverse ETF (FMET ). FDIG offers investors equity-based exposure to stocks with deep cryptocurrency ties.
FDIG, which will not offer direct exposure to cryptocurrency, delivers the opportunity to invest in companies that support the broader digital assets ecosystem, including those involved in crypto mining and trading, blockchain technology, and digital payments processing.
Meanwhile, FMET, which tracks the Fidelity Metaverse Index, offers investors exposure to rising metaverse themes such as increasing digitization and connectivity, cryptocurrency opportunities, and surging computing power.
FMET can help investors invest in the evolution and future of the internet by providing access to companies that develop, manufacture, distribute, or sell products or services related to establishing and enabling the metaverse, such as computing hardware and components, digital infrastructure, design, and engineering software, gaming technology and software, web development and content services, and smartphone and wearable technology.
“Leveraging Fidelity’s decades of investment expertise, we are focused on growing our broad product lineup with innovative strategies that offer choice, value, and new opportunities to investors,” said Greg Friedman, Fidelity’s head of ETF management and strategy, in a news release announcing the launch of the funds. “We continue to see demand, particularly from young investors, for access to the rapidly growing industries in the digital ecosystem, and these two thematic ETFs offer investors exposure in a familiar investment vehicle.”
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