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Fidelity is starting to service select clients with its Digital Asset Service, which was spun off as a separate company a few months ago.

This is HUGE!!!!! #bitcoin getting the official nod of approval from Fidelity https://t.co/eyB3hn7ayA — The Crypto Lark (@TheCryptoLark) March 7, 2019

Fidelity has recognized that certain investors want to get into cryptocurrencies, but are looking for particular standards that only larger institutions could offer. Thus, Fidelity has “established a robust set of technical and operational standards” and is testing it out on these initial users. Fidelity’s research revealed that there is a need for a “trusted platform provider in order to engage with digital assets in a meaningful way”. Thus, they “are committed to exceeding the requirements and standards of existing solutions with both our custody platform and trading venue — providing a combination of security and a central point of market access, disrupting the obfuscated nature of trading digital assets today”

The Digital Asset Service emerged from the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology (FCAT), which was an incubator for artificial intelligence and blockchain projects. Fidelity has been an early mover in terms of institutions when it comes to cryptocurrencies. Fidelity currently owns around 10% of Neptune Dash, the publicly traded Dash masternode company.

Institutional investors require their own path

Institutional investors have been wanting to get into cryptocurrencies for awhile and especially so since the exponential price increases during the last bull market within the sector. However, due to their own history and regulated nature, institutional investors require additional services on top of consumer exchanges. This caused the creation of many custodian services in an attempt to corral these investors into the cryptocurrency sector.

During the same time, many within the cryptocurrency space were hoping that this institutional money would create another boom in exchanges prices, but this has yet to happen on a significant level. Nevertheless, the fact that there is still significant investment in cryptocurrency services by these large firms helps illustrate that many investors still believe cryptocurrency is going to be in significant demand in the future. This might not be an exact indicator, but it does signal that many have high confidence in the future of cryptocurrency.

Dash poised for significant portion of market share

Investors care about getting quality investments, which means products that have a high probability of success. Thus, Dash has attracted significant attention from the likes of Palm Beach Research Group that has recognized the innovations that Dash has achieved in both technical innovations and business integrations. Additionally, as mentioned above, Fidelity has publicly staked significant bets on Dash through Neptune Dash. Dash is continuing to focus on merchant and consumer adoption, which is helping to make its aspirations of being everyday, digital cash become a reality. When the next market upswing does come, Dash stands to benefit a significant amount thanks to the infrastructure that it is currently building.