13th September 2022 > > Fidelity.

tl;dr

Fidelity is rumoured to be expanding its retail operation.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

Techies are getting in a twist as BTC trades around the 200-day MA (moving average), a level which I am reliably told is of a gold standard in the world of scribbles and circles. All utter nonsense of course, but if enough people take note, and marginal trading decisions are made based on hokum and witchcraft, we can’t always ignore it.

So, for the techies out there, this is what you should be looking at:

Makes no sense to me either, so over to a chap called Ali Martinez who is a highly accomplished purveyor of snake oil:

“The last time #Bitcoin reached the 200MA on the 12hr chart, it resulted in a steep correction. The TD Sequential now presents a sell signal at the same level, anticipating a retracement. $BTC must print a 12hr candlestick close above $22,950 to invalidate the bearish outlook.”

…

In contrast to that land of fairies and dragons, Glassnode provides real, actual analysis of on-chain data which - though not predictive - can give insights into market mentality.

In a recent report (https://insights.glassnode.com/the-week-onchain-week-37-2022/) Glassnode notes that there is a constant stream of profit-taking with each minor rally and improvement in the price of BTC:

According to Glassnode, 12% of BTC supply has a cost basis of between $18.5k and $24.5k, with most of those holdings being classified as short-term.

This range trading for that many coins suggests a real-life floor and cap for the price of BTC, based upon real-life decision making, and is far more valuable than any consideration of such measures as the 200-day MA.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – Fidelity

Fidelity, with $4.2 TRILLION AUM (assets under management) has been supportive of crypto assets in the past.

In 2015, the company launched its own bitcoin mining operation, and started providing trading services for institutional clients in 2018. In perhaps its boldest move, you will recall that in April this year, the firm allowed 401(k) retirement savings account holders to invest directly into BTC, with execution and custodial operations in place.

In the last week rumours have grown that the firm is soon to roll-out trading and custodial operations to its 34.4 million retail investor customers in BTC. Digital Galaxy CEO, Mike Novogratz claims to have the lowdown:

“A bird told me that Fidelity, a little bird in my ear, is going to shift their retail customers into crypto soon enough. I hope that bird is right. So, we are still (in) this institutional march and that gives crypto its floor.”

I don’t know the correlation between current crypto investors and Fidelity’s client base, but I suspect it is on the low side.

The key point here is the provision of custodial arrangements removing entirely the risk of losing private keys for self-custody wallets, or the risk of being hacked on a centralised exchange. Add to this the ease and familiarity of using Fidelity’s stock trading platform for its retail clients, it is easy to make the case that such an offering has the possibility of being wildly successful.