According to a job posting on its website, Fidelity is hiring a bitcoin mining engineer to help design, build, and maintain the infrastructure to run and scale its bitcoin mining operations. Fidelity began mining bitcoin and ether in 2014 for educational purposes, but now makes good money out of it, according to CEO Abigail Johnson.
Why it matters:
- Fidelity is one of the largest asset managers in the world with $3 trillion in assets under management. It is one of the most active institutional players in the space with a number of cryptocurrency-related initiatives including its Digital Assets unit launched in October 2018, which offers bitcoin custody and trade execution services for institutional clients.
- The hire may be an indication that Fidelity is looking to further operationalize its mining activities, scaling it beyond just an experiment, and further expanding its cryptocurrency-related product offerings.