Fidelity Lets You See Your Bitcoin Balance on Its Website

Fidelity Investments has revealed that it is to allow clients to see their bitcoin and ethereum holdings that are held on basset exchange Coinbase.

In a report from Reuters, Abigail Johnson, president and CEO of Fidelity Investments, said that at present the company is testing the Coinbase holdings integration with its employees.

Speaking at blockchain conference Consensus in New York City, Johnson spoke of her interest within the digital currency space.

She said:

I love this stuff – bitcoin, ethereum, blockchain technology – and what the future holds.

It’s reported that the Fidelity Investment clients will be able to use the new service when it’s introduced in the second or third quarter of the year.

Unlike most financial service institutions, which have tended to steer clear of digital currencies, Fidelity Investments has taken a more open approach to the space. So much so that in April, it was reported that the multinational financial services corporation had joined the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Contracts (IC3), a research group mainly consisting of academic establishments.

In 2015, CCN reported that Fidelity filed an application with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to trademarn FIDELITYCOIN. According to the application, it covers financial exchange services for digital currencies and electronic wallets.

By joining, it became the first financial services company to do so with its aim to continue its ‘long-term commitment to blockchain technologies.’

To further its research into digital currencies, Fidelity is testing Bitcoin internally where purchases can be made in its cafeteria. However, according to Johnson, less than 100 employees have bought anything with the cryptocurrencies.

Yet, while Johnson is keen for Bitcoin and other digital currencies to become mainstream, she states that its useability is limiting its adoption.

If you are looking for bitcoin to beat Visa at the point of sale today, you are going to be disappointed. If you are looking at this technology as just a faster settlement system for financial transactions … also disappointing.

At present, Visa is able to process an average of 150 million transactions each day and can handle over 24,000 transactions per second. Bitcoin, on the other hand, has only processed over 350,000 transactions in the last 24 hours with the number of transactions per second reduced to a mere 3.6, according to Blockchain.info.

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