Despite the Bear Market, Fidelity’s Crypto Arm on a Hiring Spree

Fidelity’s aggressive push into the cryptocurrency sector isn’t surprising. But the hiring plans for different tech roles in the financial service company have remained unfazed despite the turbulent state of the market.

• Its subsidiary, Fidelity Digital Asset Services LLC, is embarking on a recruiting effort in tech roles with blockchain experience.
• According to a report by WSJ, President Tom Jessop said that the company plans to hire 110 engineers and developers to build digital infrastructure to support services for cryptocurrencies, in addition to recruiting 100 customer-service specialists.
• As part of its expansion plans, the subsidiary aims to develop infrastructure to support custody and trading services for Ethereum (ETH).
• Jessop also revealed that the team will move platform data and applications to the cloud to facilitate faster transactions and 24-hour trading support. The focus will be on offering institutional-grade security as it expands.
• Compliance and tax-reporting tools are other aspects that the team will be tasked with. Jessop also said,

“We’re trying not to focus on the downturns and focus on some of the long-term indicators. We are trying to build infrastructure for the future because we measure success over years and decades, not weeks and months.”

• Since foraying into the blockchain space in 2018, Fidelity has so far provided services only for Bitcoin in the form of custody solutions and trading services for institutional investors.
• The latest expansion move to Ether comes a month after it announced enabling employers to offer workers access to Bitcoin as an investment option in their 401(k) plans despite the US Department of Labor as well as Senator Elizabeth Warren, along with fellow Democrat Senator Tina Smith raising concerns about it.