Fidelity Crypto Waiting List Now Open For Investors

The waiting list for Fidelity Crypto, the crypto platform of Boston-based financial services firm Fidelity Investments, is now open for investors. The platform currently supports only two currencies: Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH).

Focused on retail investors, the crypto platform will offer commission-free trading for BTC and ETH. Interestingly, Fidelity's commission-free trading competes with exchanges like Coinbase, which charges a 1% fee.

It is important to note, however, that a spread of up to 1% will be charged. The spread is the difference between the current spot price of the digital asset and the price after it is sold or bought. While Fidelity won't charge a fee to traders, it will impose this spread.

Fidelity has doubled down on crypto since the onset of the bearish market and despite the Terra ecosystem collapse and bankruptcy of multiple crypto firms. Abigail Johnson, Fidelity's chief executive officer (CEO), said earlier this year that every crypto winter presents an opportunity.

"I was raised to be a contrarian thinker and so I have this knee-jerk reaction: If you believe that the fundamentals of a long-term case are really strong, when everybody else is dipping [out], that's the time to double down and go extra hard into it," she said.

Fidelity Investments is one of the biggest supporters of the crypto industry and has even advised countries and their central banks to invest in Bitcoin, the world's oldest and largest cryptocurrency, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

The Wall Street giant is also working on allowing individual brokerage customers to purchase Bitcoin via its online brokerage platform, which has 34.4 million accounts, as reported earlier.

The firm's move toward crypto adoption has also influenced other financial giants to provide crypto-related services. David Solomon, CEO of financial giant Goldman Sach, recently met with Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and CEO of crypto exchange FTX, to discuss potential collaborations.