Fidelity Investments is a Boston-based money management firm that is a titan in the traditional finance space. They are known for taking on many of the world's wealthiest clients alongside regular everyday investors as well.

I personally hold an account with Fidelity and have used them for years as a stock-trading brokerage firm. I've watched with a close eye over the past several years as many executives in their company have mentioned crypto and expressed an interest in future additions to their crypto-focused umbrella that they launched: Fidelity Digital Assets.

Today on August 26th, 2020, Fidelity Investments filed with the SEC to begin offering "Wise Origin Bitcoin Index Fund" through a business unit named Fidelity Digital Funds.

SEC.gov

With a minimum investment of $100,000 USD, this Bitcoin-only fund will be available only to "qualified purchasers through family offices, registered investment advisers and other institutions, according to a person familiar with the matter." - Bloomberg

A Glimpse of What's Coming?

In my opinion, this Wise Origin Bitcoin Index Fund (WOBIF isn't catchy btw) is just the first step in a longer tail of digital investment products that Fidelity and other firms will soon start to offer their clients.

This particular fund is aimed at wealthier clients who fit the profile of "accreditation" - they clearly aren't ready to offer Bitcoin and other digital assets either from a regulatory or from a brokerage standpoint.

What's clear to me is that this will be one of many products that they'll offer. The first step is to have a high barrier to entry, low volume access point to Bitcoin. From there, firms like Fidelity will venture out and offer products with much smaller barriers to entry and potentially access to crypto assets outside of just Bitcoin.

We have to remember that Bitcoin is just 11 years old and the entire crypto industry has evolved incredibly fast. Even just 4-5 years ago when I started getting heavily involved in this space, crypto looked vastly different than it does today. It was much harder to buy Bitcoin let alone invest in other crypto assets.

Since then, new exchanges, currencies and access points have popped up all over the place. Now we have DeFi exploding after an ICO boom in 2017. This space has a lot of growing up to do, but having behemoth brokerages and investment firms like Fidelity getting involved is a major leap forward.

When it comes to investing in Bitcoin, I prefer to custody my own keys. With that said, having certain products on brokerages like Fidelity will offer some benefits that custodying your own keys won't.

I'm curious to see what kind of insurance and guarantees come with various products like this filing. The one thing that is certain is that this is the first among many major announcements of top firms in the investment industry jumping on the Bitcoin bandwagon.

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