As the global bank crisis spreads, Credit Suisse Group AG, a Switzerland-based global investment bank and financial services firm, seems to have been caught in the contagion, which could lead to more gains for Bitcoin and the crypto market. The banks shares CS dropped by nearly 25% over the week.

This plummet comes after the banks largest shareholder Saudi National Bank (SNB), reportedly disclosed that it could not provide further support for Credit Suisse. According to Reuters, citing an SNB statement, the bank stated it would no longer buy more shares in the Swiss bank on regulatory grounds.

Saudi National Banks latest withdrawal of support to the struggling Credit Suisse has raised several speculations on whether this could eventually lead to the downfall of the struggling bank. SNB currently holds a large stake in Credit Suisse of up to 9.88%. SNB chairman Ammar Al Khudairy told Reuters the bank could not go further than 10% due to regulatory concerns.

After the announcement, Credit Suisse shares plummeted 24% on Wednesday, March 15. Credit Suisse shares have since been on a downtrend following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank; itsrecent plummet due to SNB support withdrawal has made it hit a new record low with a value of $2.10 at the time of writing.

As of last year, after its 10% stock acquisition, SNB committed a $1.5 billion investment in Credit Suisse. The struggling banks latest major dump came just months after publishing its 2022 annual report, resulting in a massive withdrawal of funds from the financial institution.

While the company has continued to seek financial assistance after seeing a decline in customer activity, experts have suggested the bank could eventually fall, given the recent collapse of three major banks in the United States in the past week.

With the previous Bitcoin (BTC) rally attributed to the collapse of prominent banks, speculations have been raised around the crypto community on whether another significant bank fall, such as Credit Suisse, could again lead to the cryptocurrency extending its bullish trend.

Over the past week, since the fall of three major US banks Silvergate, Signature bank, and Silicon Valley, many investors in the financial sector have sought an alternative way as a store of value. So far, crypto assets such as Bitcoin have shown to be the best option. The latter has been reflected in their prices.

This has made Bitcoin and the rest of the market go into a bullish period over a short period. Furthermore, the BTC price chart indicates another potential upcoming surge after the previous rally.

Recent events hint at bad news for the global economy, but the crypto market and Bitcoin, in particular, have benefited. The continuous downfall of banks could gear BTC and the rest of the crypto market for another spike as the store of value narrative re-gains momentum as an appealing alternative to the fiat system.

Featured image from Unsplash, Chart from TradingView.

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Credit Suisse Shares Drop Nearly 25%, Is Bitcoin Gearing For Another Rally? - NewsBTC

As Bitcoins price surged past $26,000 on Tuesday, crypto traders were quick to claim that the recent uptick in digital asset prices represented a significant shift in momentum.

Crypto Twitter is filled with examples of users claiming that the spike in Bitcoins price is evidence of digital assets diverging from other risk assets like stocks, with some calling it The Great Decoupling.

For much of last year, digital assets and equities have traded in similar directions, amid an economic slowdown and tightening monetary conditions spurred on by an aggressive series of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve.

Though crypto is surging ahead in the short term, it's too early to say that the asset classs correlation has been broken given the fact that the Feds monetary policy stance is still a major player in today's markets, Wave Digital Assets Managing Director Nauman Sheikh told Decrypt.

I wouldn't say the correlation has broken down, he said. [Traders are] focused on the idea of decoupling because they're all looking for a reason for the space to rally.

Even though Bitcoin is up 56% since the start of this year compared to a 9.6% increase in the Nasdaq Composite and a 2% bump in the S&P 500, the correlation between crypto and stocks remains palpable.

I would say its still too early, as I expect initially all risk assets to move in tandem if the Fed does pivot, IntoTheBlocks Director of Research Lucas Outumuro told Decrypt. But a few weeks later it could begin to be less correlated as the largest macro headwind eases.

According to IntoTheBlocks correlation matrix, Bitcoins correlation to the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 has actually increased over the past week, from -0.23 and -0.28 to 0.24 and 0.33, respectively.

Correlations are often calculated in a way where a value of 1 indicates that two things always move in the same direction, and a value of -1 means the opposite.

Though Bitcoins correlation to the S&P 500 and Nasdaq remains positive, the measure has decreased since Jan. 31, when Bitcoins correlation to the S&P 500 was 0.85 and 0.92 to the Nasdaq.

Outumuro said that the recent spike in digital asset prices is partially based on events like an inflation report released Tuesday and the prospect of the Fed potentially putting interest rate hikes on pause following the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank last weekevents that favored stocks as well.

Large news events such as the CPI print have been mirrored in both asset classes, he said. Crypto being further out the risk curve is benefiting [it] disproportionately.

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Bitcoin Is PumpingBut Its Not Yet 'Decoupling' From Stocks, Analysts Say - Decrypt

Image Credits: Yuichiro Chino / Getty Images

The value of major cryptocurrencies rose Monday in the wake of U.S. government plans to protect Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank depositors.

The Federal Reserve issued a pair of statements on Sunday with one clear message: Silicon Valley Banks depositors, both insured and uninsured, will receive help in a manner that will fully protect their deposits.

The risk of a banking contagion was lower at the start of the week than last Friday, but not zero.

Following a rally in the price of bitcoin and other crypto assets, the overall crypto market surpassed $1 trillion in value on Monday, up about 14% day over day.

In the past 24 hours, bitcoin rose 18.4% to over $24,000, while ether rose 15% to about $1,700, CoinMarketCap data showed. The two cryptocurrencies, which are the largest by market capitalization, are trading in parallel with one another.

USDC, the second largest stablecoin, also recovered about 4% in the past 24 hours following the news that deposits would be protected, CoinMarketCap data showed.

The alleged stablecoin depegged from its $1 peg for three days, going as low as 88 cents, after uncertainty circulated around the $40 billion USDC empire and the company shared that $3.3 billion, or about 8.2%, of its total supply of reserves were held in SVB.

Circle announced the reserve risk was removed since the funds became available on Monday morning.

Trust, safety and 1:1 redeemability of all USDC in circulation is of paramount importance to Circle, even in the face of bank contagion affecting crypto markets, Jeremy Allaire, co-founder and CEO of Circle, said in a statement. We are heartened to see the U.S. government and financial regulators take crucial steps to mitigate risks extending from the banking system.

USDCs market capitalization is about $40.5 billion, with $10.9 billion in daily traded volume, down 1% in the past 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap data. At the time of publication, USDC was millicents away from its $1 peg at $0.993, up 3.9% in the past 24 hours.

The crypto market, alongside other major industries, had a volatile week after Silvergate Capital, one of the largest banks to provide services to crypto companies, shared it was winding down operations and liquidating its banking division.

Shortly after, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed on Friday, and Signature Bank, a major crypto lender, was shut down by regulators on Sunday.

This market turmoil has seemingly propped up the crypto market, however, as traders responded positively to the news and the overall market cap rose on Monday.

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Bitcoin rallies over 18% in 24-hour span in wake of SVB crisis - TechCrunch

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Its a common question: Is bitcoin (BTC) a store of value? While proponents say, Yes without hesitation, skeptics note its historically large drawdowns. And thats fair. Not long ago, in November 2021, bitcoin reached nearly $70,000 but is now around $20,000. That said, BTC also used to trade below 1 cent so, using just prices, the answer to the initial question is, Its hard to tell.

For an asset in its speculative, price-discovery phase, volatility should be expected. New opportunities and technologies often capture the attention of speculators and traders, often resulting in wild fluctuations as participants seek to determine true value.

Youre reading Crypto Long & Short, our weekly newsletter featuring insights, news and analysis for the professional investor. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Wednesday.

Pair growing interest with the skepticism, controversy and industry speed bumps experienced thus far, and the roller coaster of highs and lows makes sense at just 14 years of age.

While the asset exhibits qualities of sound money (its durable, portable, scarce, uniform and divisible), acceptance is the final uncertainty.

Through the following on-chain metrics, I aim to prove that bitcoins users believe its a store of value (SoV), despite the volatility.

Realized capitalization

One measure of bitcoins use as an SoV is its realized capitalization. Different from traditional market cap, this alternative considers the last transfer price of each bitcoin rather than the current market price.

In doing so, realized capitalization is an aggregate cost basis of bitcoins on-chain users. The total realized cap is the amount of money that has been stored in the network over time.

To me, this is a proxy for inflows. Realized capitalization rises when transfers are made at higher prices than before and declines when transfers are made at lower prices.

Story continues

According to Glassnode data, bitcoin stores a total of about $380 billion in value, down from a peak of $460 billion. But, importantly, this is four times more than in December 2017 when bitcoin was priced around where it is today. So, money has flowed into the network to store value.

(Joe Orsini, Glassnode)

Holding trends

Not only that, but bitcoins users also are holding the asset for longer and longer. Just last week, the percentage of supply that has been held for long periods has hit all-time highs despite the drop in prices since late 2021. As of March 7, according to Glassnode data:

% Supply Held for 1+ Years: 67.7%

% Supply Held for 2+ Years: 51.4%

% Supply Held for 3+ Years: 39.2%

% Supply Held for 5+ Years: 28.3%

(Joe Orsini, Glassnode)

Conclusion

There is a saying that perception is reality. Remember, bitcoin has essentially been willed into existence. Despite the noise and skepticism, money continues to flow into the network and its users are holding their assets for longer periods of time.

The next time somebody questions bitcoins use as a store of value, show them these charts. As Satoshi Nakamoto wrote, If enough people think the same way, that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

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Evaluating Bitcoin as a Store of Value - Yahoo Finance

Bitcoin is under pressure as the Federal Reserve has indicated that rates could go higher than expected and after a major crypto-focused lender, Silvergate Capital, collapsed.

Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Bitcoin briefly fell 8% to below $20,000 on Friday, hitting a near-two-month low, after a stock market sell-off in the U.S. and the collapse of a crypto-focused lender.

The cryptocurrency market saw more than $70 billion wiped off its value over the course of the 24 hours.

Bitcoin was last trading lower by just 2.7% at $19,944.66, according to Coin Metrics. Ether was last down 2.6% at $1,414.21.

The crypto sell-off has been prompted by a number of factors. The movement of cryptocurrency prices is quite closely correlated to U.S. stock markets, in particular the tech-heavy Nasdaq.

On Tuesday, U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell indicated that interest rates may go higher and stay higher than expected. The raising of interest rates over the past year has weighed on risk assets such as stocks, and in particular cryptocurrencies.

"There is just little reason to buy bitcoin now as the market is saturated with negative developments, not just specifically for the crypto industry, but also for the wider financial market as well," Yuya Hasegawa, an analyst at Japanese crypto firm Bitbank, told CNBC via email.

Another major factor weighing on crypto prices is the collapse of Silvergate Capital, a major lender to the crytpo industry. Silvergate said Wednesday it is winding down operations and liquidating its bank.

Silvergate's fall is another example how the collapse of major cryptocurrency exchange FTX continues to have an impact on the industry. FTX was a big customer of Silvergate.

Separately, on Friday morning the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation closed Silicon Valley Bank and took control of its deposits, making it the largest U.S. bank failure since the global financial crisis. The bank's parent company, SVB Financial, said late Wednesday that it sold off $21 billion worth of its holdings at a $1.8 billion loss. SVB was a major bank in the technology start-up space.

The sale of assets comes as SVB grapples with a weaker technology funding environment as VCs remain cautious amid a weaker macroeconomic situation and rising interest rates.

Both Silvergate and SVB put their money into U.S. Treasurys which have lost value as the Fed has raised rates. These banks have been forced to sell these bonds at a loss to shore up their capital position.

"Overall, sentiment seems to have turned quite bearish given a combination of global macro and interest rate rises but also the exposure many banks probably have to long duration securities," Vijay Ayyar, vice president of corporate development at crypto exchange Luno, told CNBC via email.

CNBC's Tanaya Macheel contributed reporting.

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More than $70 billion wiped off crypto market in 24 hours as bitcoin drops below $20,000 - CNBC

In an interview Tuesday, Frank defended Signatures business and said it was seized due to an overreaction by a New York state regulatory agency following the collapse of another financial institution, Silicon Valley Bank, last Friday. He also disputed his critics claim that he had supported a 2018 law, signed by then-president Donald Trump, that weakened key provisions of Dodd-Frank.

Regulators seized control of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank after customers suddenly withdrew billions of dollars of deposits last week, and regulators determined the banks could collapse if the withdrawals continued.

The two banks, based in California and New York, respectively, had some features in common that made them vulnerable, industry observers said. Both had exceptionally high levels approximately 90 percent of uninsured deposits, that is funds belonging to a single customer in excess of $250,000, the federal cap for insuring deposits.

And both banks had a high proportion of customers from high-risk industries tech in Silicon Valleys case and cryptocurrency in Signatures. Silicon Valley Bank had also invested a significant portion of customer deposits in long-term bonds, whose value had declined as the federal government hiked interest rates in the past year, making it harder for the bank to meet customer demands for withdrawals.

Signature, which had accepted crypto token deposits since 2018, was affected by an erosion of confidence in cryptocurrency after the bankruptcy of FTX, a cryptocurrency exchange, last November and the announced liquidation of Silvergate Bank, a cryptocurrency-focused bank, this month.

Frank said Signature got hurt when nervous customers rushed to withdraw their deposits Friday. Then, over the weekend, the New York Department of Financial Services stepped in to shut the bank and hand the reins to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as a receiver.

The New York regulators said they had problems with our data, Frank said. I dont think thats a reason you shut people down.

A Department of Financial Services spokesperson said that following the bank run, Signature failed to provide reliable and consistent data, creating a significant crisis of confidence in the banks leadership.

Frank also alleged that bias against cryptocurrency may have played a role in the New York regulators decision to shut down Signature. I thought it was an anti-crypto thing, he said.

The DFS spokesperson said, The decisions made over the weekend had nothing to do with crypto.

Frank has faced criticism this week for allegedly supporting a 2018 bill that eased regulatory oversight of medium-sized banks, such as Signature, while serving on Signatures board. But Frank pushed back on Tuesday, citing a 2018 CNBC op-ed he wrote criticizing the final form that bill took. Why I would vote no on Senate bill to amend Dodd-Frank, the headline said.

The central dispute back in 2018 and the current controversy is the question of which banks are so big, and so important to the broader financial system, that they must be subjected to heightened regulatory scrutiny.

The original Dodd-Frank law set that threshold at $50 billion in assets. Banks above that limit faced strict reporting requirements, were subjected to stress tests to see if they could withstand a severe economic downturn, and had to create plans for how they would safely wind down operations in the event of a collapse. Regulators were also more likely to require them to keep greater amounts of reserve capital on hand.

Frank said Tuesday that he always thought the $50 billion threshold was too low. It placed too great a burden on smaller banks, which inhibited competition. He said Tuesday that he called for an increase of the threshold in 2013 at a conference held at the Chicago Federal Reserve. Id never heard of Signature Bank at that time, he said.

He joined Signatures board in 2015 and earned $2.4 million in stocks and cash while serving there, Frank said.

Signature was under the Dodd-Frank threshold in 2015, with less than $29 billion in assets, according to Federal Reserve statistics. During Franks time on the board, the banks assets more than tripled to more than $110 billion as of last week, according to the FDIC.

In 2018, as the bill amending Dodd-Frank was being considered, Frank advocated raising the $50 billion threshold. He wrote in the CNBC op-ed that $125 billion would be reasonable. He argued that the effect of raising the threshold to that level would be substantively neutral, and politically beneficial, undercutting some criticism of Dodd-Frank and helping to safeguard the laws future.

But when Republicans pushed for a $250 billion limit, he balked. I believe that the price the Republican colleagues are demanding is too high, he wrote at the time.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, in recent days, has sharply criticized the 2018 law and said that leaving the $50 billion threshold in place could have prevented the collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

President Trump and congressional Republicans decision to roll back Dodd-Franks too big to fail rules for banks like [Silicon Valley Bank] reducing both oversight and capital requirements contributed to a costly collapse, she said in a statement Friday.

On Tuesday, Warren and other Democratic legislators introduced a bill to repeal the portion of the 2018 law that raised the asset threshold.

Mark Williams, a Boston University finance professor and former Federal Reserve bank examiner, said raising the threshold had caused a reduction in bank oversight. But he said decisions at the banks themselves were more significant factors in their failures than regulatory changes.

Both banks allowed their uninsured deposits to grow to extraordinarily high levels, Williams said. And both aggressively pursued clients in high-risk, high-reward sectors, he said. (Signature also had customers in a wide range of other industries, the Department of Financial Services spokesperson said.)

They bet that those industries would continue to take off and that the industries success would be their success, he said. It was a very risky decision.

Signature changed its risk profile in a very short time, Williams said, referring to the banks pivot in recent years toward cryptocurrency. This was a staid bank that turned into a more risk-taking bank and it was clearly to seek greater profit.

Mike Damiano can be reached at mike.damiano@globe.com.

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Barney Frank, coauthor of landmark banking reform, defends his positions after SVB collapse, Signature Bank seizure - The Boston Globe

Alex Dovbnya

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink has suggested that the next big trend in the crypto industry could be tokenization

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BlackRockCEO Larry Fink's annual letter to investors suggests that tokenization might be the next big trend in crypto.

According to the head of the $10 trillion asset management behemoth, Bitcoin has caught headlines as a mere distraction, with the media's "obsession" obscuring other interesting developments happening in the cryptocurrencyspace.

Fink draws attention to the dramatic advances in digital payments taking place in emerging markets such asBraziland parts of Africa. Hecontrasts them with the sluggish pace of innovation in developed markets like the US, where the cost of payments remains high.

In his view, the fragmentation of asset categories into tokens presents a highly encouraging prospect.

He has confirmedthat Blackrock is actively delving into the realm of digital assets with an emphasis on permissionedblockchains and the conversion of stocks and bonds into tokens.

However, Fink acknowledges that while the industry is maturing, there is still no regulatory clarity.He hasassuredinvestors that they will apply the same standards and controls to cryptothat they do across their business.

As reported by U.Today,Fink predicted that most cryptocurrency companies would failduring his recent appearance at a summit. The BlackRock bossalso revealed that BlackRock put $24 million into the defunctFTX exchange, but it was then forced to mark thatsum down to zero.

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Forget Bitcoin: BlackRock CEO Touts Next Big Thing in Crypto - U.Today

The cryptocurrency exchange Kraken made big news last month when it announced a groundbreaking settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, shutting down the firms staking-as-a-service business in the U.S. and paying a $30 million settlement.

The news came as a jolt, in part because of the reputation of the defendant. Kraken is one of the more responsible actors in an industry characterized by reckless business practices. But a bigger shock came in the form of the SECs interpretation of staking.

To technologists, staking has a straightforward definition based on its purpose in a cryptocurrency network. In proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms, networks are secured by actors running specialized software who are typically required to put funds at stake to deter them from acting maliciously. Under this incentive scheme, funds are destroyed (slashed) by the network if a participant acts dishonestly. Staking refers to using ones funds to participate in the security of a decentralized cryptocurrency network by running softwarerather than burning electricity, like in a proof-of-work consensus chain.

Staking by exchanges, as pioneered by Coinbase, involves a service-based approach. This is where the practice should have begun and endedexchanges could act as savvier participants to secure a blockchain network on behalf of some token holders, passing along to them any rewards accrued in the process. On the Tezos platform, Coinbase acts as a delegate for token holders to assign rights to validate and vote on the blockchain. Coinbase makes money by taking a portion of the rewards accrued by running software on their customers behalf. This is a modest but consistent revenue steam, and an easy option for less-technical token holders to participate in the Tezos network.

At the peak of the 2020 speculative frenzy, known as DeFi summer, however, the definition of staking as a technical practicea security-ensuring mechanism for a network paired with a small incentive structuremorphed into a catchall phrase to describe everything from risky lending practices to providing liquidity to decentralized exchanges. Some even began invoking staking to describe the returns for Ponzi-esque projects like the Terra protocol. The upshot is that many protocols and tokens no longer employ staking to describe securing a network, but rather as a marketing term for a dodgy reward system for new users. This has led to many crypto participants, especially less sophisticated ones, conflating yields and stakes and believing that staking implies double- or triple-digit returns on recently minted tokens.

As Sam Bankman-Fried described in his now-infamous money box analogy, this weird box staking thing starts out as just this sort of like side show to the bigger story of were gonna change the world with the protocol that we just built. Its no surprise, given Bankman-Frieds history with the disgraced FTX exchange, that the weird box staking thing propping up crypto markets in 2020 and 2021 proved to be unsustainable.

This is why we cant have nice things.

Conflating securing a network with marketing a token through the common use of staking is a microcosm of whats plagued the industry rhetorically for the last decade. In blurring the lines between activities like lending, token distribution, Ponzi economics, andtechnical security, staking now means nothing at all. Like all security measures, the concept was at its best when it was boring.

Once, there was a rhetorical distinction between the creation of tokens for network security and the creation of tokens as a distribution strategy to promote a new project. Unfortunately, too many projects appropriated the language of network security to describe a distribution scheme that would create good feelings through unsustainably high yields for early participants. While the market capitalization of the industry expanded, nobody felt the need to clarify these two radically different activities. Now that numbers have gone down, the folks who succumbed to peer pressure have started to watch their chickens come home to roost. (My guess is that stablecoins will be the next meaningless word to invite scrutiny from regulators.)

A call for precise language in the cryptocurrency space has always felt like a shout into the void. The recent staking-as-a-service settlement feels like validation of that lament, and it will be far from the last.

Kathleen Breitman is a cofounder of Tezos. The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs ofFortune.

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Staking as a disservicehow crypto marketers ruin it for everyone - Fortune

Use of emerging alternative payment platforms, such as Apple Pay or Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies, can alter consumer credit card behavior and consequently impact our interchange fee income.

So says Horizon Bancorp which provides a broad range of banking services through its bank subsidiary, Horizon Bank.

They have $7.9 billion in assets and $5.9 billion in deposits with this regional bank being the first to explicitly state that bitcoin is a risk to their profits.

The increasing use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies and/or stable coin and the possible impact these alternative currencies may have on deposit disintermediation and income derived from payment systems, is one of the risks, uncertainties, and factors that could cause Horizons actual results to vary materially, the bank says, as well as:

Potential loss of fee income, including interchange fees, as new and emerging alternative payment platforms (e.g., Apple Pay or Bitcoin) take a greater market share of the payment systems.

Of course the banks loss is the publics gain as they benefit from lower fees or from diversifying deposit risks, but allegedly some regulators are intervening against this market competition and innovation which benefits the taxpayer.

Barney Frank, the former congressman and architect of the landmark Dodd-Frank banking regulations who also sits on the board of Signature bank, which was closed last week by the Department of Financial Services in New York (DFS), accuses the latter of closing the bank for no good reason as it was not insolvent, but to send a crypto message.

Why did they react so harshly to what they said was our inability to give them the sufficient data? I believe it was probably to send the message that even though we were doing crypto stuff responsibly, they dont want banks doing crypto.

DFS has denied the accusation, claiming there was a crisis of confidence in the banks leadership, but if the bank was indeed solvent, closing in does raise questions.

In addition the admission by Horizon bank now finally provides evidence of bias, which law makers and the elected will hopefully bear in mind when they are lobbied, both through the media and in private, against what they see as their competitor: crypto.

Where bankers as individuals are concerned however the story has been changing and considerably, with many of them embracing the new frontier.

Yet some bankers, like Jamie Dimon or Warren Buffet, remain viciously biased towards the entire crypto space with some regulators too often not bothering to hide their bias.

A bias no different than Blockbusters towards Netflix, with here too lower fees, diversification of risk and other features, including ease of global access, benefiting the public.

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Bitcoin a Risk to Profits Says Bank - Trustnodes

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Fidelity Investments has quietly opened access to bitcoin and ether trading to all of its retail traders, filling a void created by the closures in recent days of cryptocurrency-friendly banks that bridged the divide between digital and traditional finance.

The Fidelity Crypto platform, previously available only to institutions and some waitlisted customers, was made available earlier this month. Individual investors can now buy and sell bitcoin and ether and use custodial and trading services provided by Fidelity Digital Assets.

Clients are not yet able to transfer cryptocurrency to or from their Fidelity accounts. The company said it would be exploring cryptocurrency transfers in November, shortly after announcing the waitlist, but hasnt provided a clear timeline.

The separation of investors from the passwords known as private keys that allow direct owners to take custody of their cryptocurrencies combined with the inability to transfer holdings means that Fidelity retains custody of the assets. A string of bankruptcies among crypto exchanges and investment programs last year illustrated the drawbacks of entrusting digital assets to intermediaries, though Fidelitys size and reputation likely mitigates the risk.

The company has not responded to a Forbes request for more information.

Trading is open only to U.S. citizens over the age of 18 who reside in one of the 36 states where Fidelity Digital Assets offers services.

Following the footsteps of stock-trading app Robinhood and crypto exchange Binance.US, the asset manager has touted the offering as commission-free, but theres a catch: a 1% fee will be added to each transaction. The company calls the fee a spread and defines it as the difference between your execution price and the price at which Fidelity Digital Assets fills your order.

The move comes at a time when the U.S. cryptocurrency market is facing regulatory pressure, sparked by multiple high-profile collapses last year, and closures of crypto-friendly banks including the Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate and Signature.

Still, the Fidelity service provides both the credibility that crypto has needed and the opportunity for investors, most of whom rely on their financial advisors for investment strategies, says Ric Edelman, a financial advisor and founder of Digital Assets Council of Financial Professionals.

In addition to cryptocurrency trading, Fidelity also provides, Fidelity Ethereum Index Fund, which tracks the performance of the coin in U.S dollars. In December, the asset manager filed three trademark applications for providing NFT and metaverse investment services.

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Amid Crypto Bank Crisis, Fidelity Expands Bitcoin, Ether Trading To Most Retail Accounts - Forbes