Fidelity Investments Files Bitcoin ETF Application

Fidelity Investments has filed a Bitcoin ETF proposal with the SEC. The asset management giant is the latest to join the queue of firms hoping to lay claim to the product.

Fidelity Joins BTC ETF Hopefuls

Fidelity’s subsidiary, FD Funds Management LLC, filed its S-1 with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).  The firm’s Bitcoin ETF is called the “Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund.”

The financial service company’s child unit Fidelity Digital Assets, will provide the custodial services to store Bitcoins backing the ETF.

With close to $5 trillion in assets under management, Fidelity Investments has built a suite of Bitcoin-related investment tools in custodial service, mining experiments, a cash lending program, and Fidelity Bitcoin Index PR, which fetches the real-time price of BTC in U.S. dollars based on the trading on spot exchanges.

A spokesperson at the firm told the Wall Street Journal,

“An increasingly wide range of investors seeking access to bitcoin has underscored the need for a more diversified set of products offering exposure to digital assets.”

Bitcoin ETF applications continue to pile at the SEC since December 2020. 

There are eight pending fillings with the regulator, including VanEck, NYDIG, CBOE, Wisdom Tree, Valkyrie, SkyBridge, First Advisors, and Simplify’s mixed ETF with stocks, and, of course, Fidelity’s application. 

Nonetheless, the SEC has rejected nine applications before the pandemic. 

Disclosure: The author held Bitcoin at the time of press.