Fidelity Digital Asset Services' Tom Jessop on Why It's Serving Institutional Clients First - Ep.043

Fidelity Digital Asset Services president Tom Jessop explains why its new crypto offering for institutional clients is focused on custody and trade execution, why it's decided not to launch its own exchange, and what kinds of trading capabilities from traditional financial services they plan to build out in the space. He also describes Fidelity's journey to this point -- how it started mining Bitcoin in 2015, had employees buy what must now be some of the world's most expensive bagels in the company cafeteria, and enabled Bitcoin donations in its donor advised funds. He also answers whether or not they plan to create a digital asset offering for retail customers, how custodying digital assets is different from custodying traditional assets and how he came to Fidelity after experience at Goldman Sachs and Chain.

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Episode links:

Fidelity Digital Assets: https://www.fidelitydigitalassets.com/overview

Fidelity's journey in crypto: https://medium.com/@FidelityDigitalAssets/fidelity-digital-assets-the-journey-from-idea-to-market-3ab3bf4b38d5

Custody of digital assets: https://medium.com/@FidelityDigitalAssets/custody-in-the-age-of-digital-assets-95799f347016

Endowments investing in crypto: https://www.theinformation.com/articles/harvard-stanford-mit-endowments-invest-in-crypto-funds