Bitcoin [BTC]’s surge resulted in Fidelity making huge profits, says CEO

According to CNBC, a 72 years old financial institution, Fidelity has been investing billions of dollars in adopting new technologies to compete with Google, Facebook, and Microsoft. Reportedly, the financial giant has been spending $2.5 billion on technology annually. Furthermore, the employees at Fidelity’s innovation center have been secretively developing their own blockchain platform.

Fidelity realized the potential of blockchain technology just before its importance increased in the corporate industry during 2018. The CEO of Fidelity, Abigail Johnson was the key person to lead the firm’s entry in the cryptocurrency market. This, according to them, was one of the riskiest and most unpredictable asset class in the past few years.

Abigail Johnson stated that she was very curious about hte cryptocurrency market and blockchain technology, along with a group of senior executives. Johnson said that they were particularly interested in Bitcoin and she further added:

“We started getting together to say, we got to understand this”

It was further added that Fidelity had started Bitcoin mining in New Hampshire when its price was approximately $180. Johnson stated that the firm made a huge profit after Bitcoins bullish run last year, when the price surged to $20,000. However, according to her, making profit was not the main reason behind stepping into the space.

Fidelity had also established “Bits and Blocks” a blockchain club for their employees. This accommodated 2600 employees and hosted seminars and meetups related to blockchain technology. Fidelity had recently partnered with Coinbase to allow its customers to use their mobile app and check their cryptocurrency balance.

Katie Chase, the Head of the Blockchain Incubator stated that they were interested in exploring both enterprise blockchain and public blockchain. She further stated that Fidelity’s customers, employees, and partners were showing interest in the development of the blockchain asset industry.

“It’s still very nascent. All of the stuff that you’re reading about, if you dig under the covers is still in the proof of concept stage”

According to Katie, blockchain technology was applied in some of their use cases but they further understood that there were certain barriers which could not be addressed by the technology. She added that Fidelity would focus on those problems.

The report claimed that Fidelity was interested in some major aspects of blockchain technology which included areas related to tokenizing a piece of art or applying blockchain in the supply chain area.