Fidelity Investments: Institutional hosting, investing in public companies and setting up bitcoin index funds
Original source: Oco Blockchain
Author: OKlink
原标题：《 投资比特币的机构版图（四）：富达投资（Fidelity Investment） 》
1946 was an extraordinary year in the 20th century.
That was the year Churchill delivered his "Iron Curtain" speech in the United States, the NBA was founded and blew its first whistle, Wen Yiduo was assassinated, Syria and the Philippines declared independence -- and Fidelity Investments, the subject of our story today, was officially founded. More than 70 years on, Fidelity Investments has become one of the world's largest asset managers, with $8.8 trillion under management, equivalent to the combined GDPs of Japan and Germany in 2019 -- a little-known fact that such a large asset management firm is privately owned.
From Bitcoin funds to mortgages, from corporate incubators to industry research reports, Fidelity Investments has become a backstory for the digital asset industry -- something that no one can avoid and everyone must understand.
Fidelity Investments: $8.8 trillion family business?
Fidelity Investment was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Boston, USA. Founded by Edward C.Johnson II, Fidelity Investments has gone through many trials to build it into one of the world's largest asset managers.
Johnson II is enviably focused on the "ingredients" of the company, the "American version of Huawei," and is determined not to go public -- the Johnson family currently owns 49% of the company, and has signed an agreement to vote unanimously for Johnson's granddaughter, Abigail Johnson, to take over as CEO and own about 24.5 percent of the company. The remaining 51% of shares are also held by employees and former employees of Fidelity Investments -- such shares not only guarantee the stability of the company's management and decision-making, but also activate the vitality of development.
Currently, Fidelity Investments' services cover fund distribution, asset management, life insurance, retirement services, securities execution and liquidation, crypto assets, and more. As of February 5, 2021, the Company has 32.5 million independent investors, handles 2.2 million transactions per day, manages $8.8 trillion in client assets, and has more than 44 subsidiaries, including FidelityInternational, Fidelity Brokage Company, etc.
(Credit: Fidelity Investments)
Fidelity Investments' boom has propelled its CEO and founder's granddaughter, Abigail Johnson, to No. 9 on the 2019 Forbes Most Powerful Women list.
Abigail Johnson is the standard American business heir. Born in 1961, she excelled as a child, graduated from Cambridge and later earned an MBA from Harvard Business School. After finishing her studies, she started "following the process".
In 1988, at the age of 27, she joined her family's Fidelity Investments group as an analyst and portfolio manager. In 2001, she was elected chairman of a subsidiary, Fidelity Asset Management. In 2005, he became Head of Retail, Office and Institutional Commerce. Abigail Johnson has served as CEO of Fidelity Investments since 2014.
Abigail Johnson herself is a vocal advocate of crypto assets. Speaking at the 2017 New York Consensus, Johnson said, "I love these things -- Bitcoin, Ethereum, Blockchain -- and what's coming." She hasn't disclosed her crypto holdings yet, but the big guy is in the big guy's bracket -- launching a subsidiary called Fidelity Digital Assets directly. FidelityDigital Asset Services.
Fidelity Investments' Bitcoin business
Fidelity DigitalAsset Services (FDAS) is a subsidiary of Fidelity Investments and a specific extension of their "DigitalAsset Strategy".
Fidelity Investments started focusing on crypto assets and the blockchain industry back in 2014, and has been investing in blockchain incubators since 2015. In May 2017, the company's chairwoman, Abigail Johnson, spoke publicly for the first time in her personal role at the Consensus conference in New York, saying she was bullish on bitcoin: "I love these things -- bitcoin, Ethereum, blockchain technology -- and what's going to happen."
(Source: FDAS official website)
Since then, Fidelity's investment ambitions have come to light.
In August 2017, Fidelity Investments partnered with Coinbase so that users could see their digital asset balances on its website. On October 15, 2018, Fidelity Investments officially announced the separation of Fidelity Digital Assets (FDAS) as a separate company to conduct in-depth business related to the Group's digital assets. Tom Jessup, who was previously responsible for Fidelity's digital assets business director, will serve as the chairman of FDAS. On November 19, 2019, the Company was granted the NYSDFS (New York State Department of Financial Services) BTC Transaction Custodian License.
Currently, Fidelity Digital Assets mainly targets institutional investors, such as hedge funds, family offices and market intermediaries. At present, Fidelity Digital Assets supports four services related to BTC: asset custody, trade execution, customer support and mortgage lending. In particular, their mortgage lending business has developed with unique characteristics.
On December 9, 2020, Fidelity Digital Assets announced the launch of its Bitcoin mortgage lending service in partnership with crypto asset lending platform BlockFi. The target audience is investors who want cash flow but are reluctant to sell bitcoin, as well as potential customers like hedge funds and miners.
Zac Prince, BlockFi's chief executive, said the company plans to set a 60 percent mortgage ratio to take into account bitcoin price fluctuations, which would allow it to pledge $1,000 worth of bitcoins for a $600 loan. This ratio may also be adjusted according to the level of the customer to meet the needs of large companies. Fidelity already has more than 100 users using its digital asset service, mainly hedge funds, family offices and corporations.
(Credit: Fidelity Investments)
Since its inception in 2018, FDAS has primarily served institutional investors in the United States. In December 2019, FDAS announced the establishment of its European subsidiary, headquartered in London and headed by Chris Tyrer. In October 2020, FDAS announced that it had successfully expanded its business in Asia by partnering with Stack Funds, a Singapore startup, to provide FDAS crypto asset custody services to high net worth investors and family offices in the region through Stack Funds.
The people behind the digital asset industry
FDAS's digital asset infrastructure business is just "a small part of the plan" for Fidelity, a giant asset manager. A closer look reveals that the firm is already a major player in the digital asset industry when it comes to corporate investment and fund management.
On the business side, Fidelity Investments launched Avon Ventures in September 2019 to focus on investing in "businesses within crypto and blockchain systems," and has quietly invested in a number of industry giants. As a leading company in the blockchain industry and a Nasdaq-listed company, Ganan Technology is in the limelight. Behind the scenes, Fidelity is its largest institutional shareholder, holding 2,714,809 shares of Canon Technology.
(Credit: Yahoo Finance)
In addition, blockchain companies such as Fireblocks, Clear, Erisx, and BlockFi all have large stakes in Fidelity Investments.
(Credit: CBInsights)
On the fund side, FidelityBrokerage Services, a subsidiary of Fidelity Investments, launched the group's first Bitcoin index fund, Wise Origin, on August 27th, 2020. According to the disclosures, the fund is part of the newly launched Fidelity Digital Fund.
In the trend of crypto funds led by Grayscale, 21Shares, 3IQ and other companies, Fidelity Investments, as a strong later-comer, is backed by strong financial strength. The following strategic deployment may bring competitive pressure to Grayscale and other institutions, and at the same time trigger the following follow effect to further stimulate the vitality of the digital asset market.
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