Fidelity to offer commission-free bitcoin, ether trading to retail

Fidelity Investments, one of the world's largest financial services firms handling $9.9T in assets, has opened up a waitlist Thursday for a new service, called Crypto Fidelity, that will allow retail investors to buy and sell bitcoin (BTC-USD) and ethereum (ETH-USD) without having to pay a commission. While users will be able to trade those cryptocurrencies commission-free, the firm noted that a spread of up to 1% will be charged into every trade execution price, according to its website. The service will be offered by its subsidiary Fidelity Digital Assets. Nevertheless, the move will put Fidelity in direct competition with retail trading app Robinhood Markets (HOOD) and crypto exchange Binance, both of which already enable users to trade crypto without having to pay a commission. "A meaningful portion of Fidelity customers are already interested in and own crypto. We are providing them with tools to support their choice, so they can benefit from Fidelity’s education, research, and technology," the firm said.The move is a big deal for the crypto community given Fidelity's large scale with more than 34M brokerage clients, paving the way for increased crypto adoption. It can also be seen as a positive catalyst because Fidelity has been clearly deepening its involvement in the emerging space despite depressed token prices. Just a couple weeks ago, Fidelity Digital Assets planned to boost its headcount by another 100 workers in t...