What happens to your bitcoins if you die? A crypto custody service such as Fidelity will hold them securely and abide by your instructions.

Boston-based financial group Fidelity thinks there is a profitable business in crypto custody services and trading. It may be a smart move because there is a crying shortage of large, reputed players in the ‘Wild West’ world of crypto assets.

Fidelity is building upon its initial launch last autumn of “enterprise-quality” custodianship and trade execution services. Fidelity targeted these at accredited crypto investors such as hedge funds and family offices, as well as financial advisers.

From a crypto mining experiment in 2014 to other experiments with digital currencies and blockchain, Fidelity has seen it all. Ultimately, it zeroed in on crypto custody services as the most promising area of crypto services.

Custodianship to address accidents and death

Stories abound of significant wealth lost through misplaced thumb drives used to stored bitcoin. Also of people dying without handing over the digital wealth in their crypto wallet and its private keys.

Fidelity could be a trusted custodian of crypto investors and save them such mishaps, according to Abigail Johnson, chief executive.

“Our goal is to make digitally-native assets, such as bitcoin, more accessible to investors,” Fidelity Investments Chairman and CEO Abigail Johnson said in a press release.

Fidelity will hold crypto assets in “cold storage” vaults to keep crypto hackers at bay. Additionally, there would be multilevel physical and cyber controls, among other security protocols.

Crypto custody services: It’s not complicated

Ms Johnson said the business was not that much of a bid deal “if you’re interested or technically adept.” It was just in a nascent stage when compared to other financial relationships.

Fidelity finally decided to enter the crypto custody services based on frequent requests from financial advisers on behalf of their crypto investors.

Ms Johnson shrugged off the mention of competition from crypto exchange Coinbase, which is already holding billions of dollars of crypto assets for customers: “Still a company that most people have never heard of, and they don’t have the existing relationships with the independent advisers.”

[Related Story:   Fidelity Investments Eliminates Commissions  ]