© Reuters
Investing.com – Abigail Johnson, President and CEO of Fidelity Investments, arguably one of the most committed institutional players in cryptocurrency, spoke at the Consensus 2022 event hosted by Coindesk in Austin, Texas yesterday. reiterating his positive long-term belief in cryptocurrencies.
“I figure this is my third crypto winter. There have been a lot of ups and downs, but I see this as an opportunity,” she said of the bear market.
“I was raised to be a contrarian thinker and so I have this instinctive reaction: If you think the fundamentals of a long-term business are really strong, when everyone is diving, it’s time to double down. and go for it.”
Recall that Fidelity was one of the first major institutional players to deal directly with crypto, with Bitcoin custody services. More recently, Fidelity began offering credit exposure for its clients’ 401(k) retirement plans, which has raised concerns and strong reactions.
“I never thought we’d get so much attention for bringing a little bitcoin to a little bit of 401(k) activity,” she said of it, adding, “A lot of people now, that they’ve heard about it, have asked, so I’ve been happily surprised by the amount of positive feedback we’ve received about it.”
Recall that this decision to allow exposure to crypto in the more than 20 million retirement plans it manages was met with immediate reluctance from the United States Department of Labor as well as Senator Elizabeth Warren. (D-Mass), who pointed to volatility risks.
But there again, Johnson sees in it, ultimately, something positive:
“To see some of the regulators trying to address this issue is very encouraging and exciting for us. Because if they don’t give us a pathway to make some of these connections, then it’s really difficult for us, in the background , to be able to give the impression that everything is transparent.”