Fidelity Investments is reportedly considering allowing individual investors to invest in bitcoin on its brokerage platform, per a report from the Wall Street Journal.
The pro-bitcoin financial institution previously published an investor report titled Bitcoin First, establishing why investors should consider investing in bitcoin before any other digital asset. Now, Fidelity looks to open up this investment vehicle to its more than 34 million individual investors.
In 2018, Fidelity built a platform which allowed institutional investors and hedge funds to trade bitcoin, and more recently, the company partnered with MicroStrategy to launch its Bitcoin 401(k).
Thus, while Fidelity has continually shown a pro-bitcoin focus for its institutional-grade investors, the 401(k) product allowed the financial behemoth to still cater to a larger clientele while putting bitcoin in the hands of every-day workers.
However, this consistent support for bitcoin has drawn unwanted attention from legislators. This past July, an open letter from staunch bitcoin opponents condemned Fidelity for offering its 401(k) product.
In fact, one particular passage from the letter shows exactly how some U.S. legislators feel about bitcoin being offered to the working-class:
“This begs the question: when saving for retirement is already a challenge for so many Americans, why would Fidelity allow those who can save to be exposed to an untested, highly volatile asset like Bitcoin?”
Despite Bitcoin’s adoption as both a store-of-value and as a viable currency, it is clear that legislators and legacy institutions are still grappling with understanding or accepting bitcoin. However, one might argue that Fidelity is ignoring the noise of the ecosystem and continuing to deliver innovative service offerings.