Fidelity invests $14.2 million in Hong Kong Exchange

Fidelity Investments has invested $14.2 million in the company that operates Hong Kong-based crypto asset exchange, OSL.

Fidelity continues its foray Into crypto

Boston-based Fidelity Investments Inc. has invested $14.2 million to buy a 5.6 percent stake into Hong Kong-based BC Technology Group Ltd., which owns and operates the digital asset exchange OSL. The investment management behemoth bought 17 million shares for a price of HK$6.50 (US$0.83) per share, according to a shareholder’s disclosure.

Hong Kong Stock Exchange-listed BC Group conducted a $36 million share placement in January, but the investors were only disclosed in February.

OSL is a leading Asian digital asset exchange that caters primarily to professional and institutional investors. The trading platform offers an exchange, a brokerage service, SaaS solutions, and insured crypto custody.

“We’re excited to see that world-class equity investors are increasingly participating in the fast-growing digital asset sector, and we look forward to reaching new milestones with our industry-leading institutional investors,” BC Group CEO Hugh Madden commented on the Fidelity Investment.

Fidelity – Wall Street’s premier crypto believers

Fidelity’s investment in Hong Kong-based BC Group should not come as a surprise to anyone who has been following the asset manager’s foray into crypto in the past five years.

Fidelity is arguably the most crypto-friendly institutional investment company in the world. As early as 2015, the financial services company started to mine Bitcoin (BTC).

In addition, Fidelity has launched a blockchain incubator, has accepted charitable donations in crypto, and has enabled Fidelity.com customers to view crypto balances on their online accounts.

Fidelity’s biggest crypto move to date, however, was the launch of the digital asset trading and custody services provider Fidelity Digital Asset Services (FDAS) in 2018.

"Our goal is to make digitally-native assets, such as Bitcoin, more accessible to investors. We expect to continue investing and experimenting, over the long-term, with ways to make this emerging asset class easier for our clients to understand and use," said Abigail P. Johnson, Chairman, and CEO of Fidelity Investments in a statement when Fidelity Digital Asset Services was launched.