Fidelity Digital Assets, the digital assets branch of financial services giant Fidelity Investments, in an unprecedented first, has become the first investment bank to receive the torch signaling the entry into the bitcoin [BTC] payments realm via the Lightning Network.
On February 22, Fidelity Digital Assets, via Twitter, announced that it acquired the Lightning Network [LN] Torch from the bitcoin maximalist @Wiz. They further posed a question to the cryptocurrency community, asking who should receive the torch next.
The tweet stated:
“We and our research team at the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology have received the #LNTorch from @Wiz. Who should we pass it to? #LNTrustChain”
Wiz, in his tweet, stated that Fidelity’s first transaction is worth 0.0364BTC or 3.64 million Satoshis, which equated to $144 as per the trading price of the top cryptocurrency at press time.
Following the aforementioned announcement, Fidelity Digital Assets answered the question they asked in the earlier tweet. Responding to an LN request, the digital assets wing of the investment bank announced that HBS Blockchain and Cryptocurrency club, a cryptocurrency-centric student club at the Harvard Business School, would receive the Lightning Torch next due to their focus on the research and development of bitcoin.
The tweet said:
“We have selected @HBSCryptoClub to receive the #LightningTorch, as they continue to enable #bitcoin research and development. Please send us your invoice for 3.65M sats.”
Launched in mid-October, the digital assets centric wing of the investment bank had announced last year that it would launch a crypto-custody solution in early 2019, given the incoming wave of institutional investors. However, during the end of January, Fidelity announced that their custody solution was delayed until March of this year. Furthermore, they announced that the top-two coins, bitcoin [BTC] and Ether [ETH], would be the first two cryptocurrencies to receive custody support.
Abigail Johnson, the CEO of Fidelity, is a major cryptocurrency proponent and stated during the digital assets wing launch that the company had kept a watchful eye over the cryptocurrency industry for years and that the financial services company has been mining bitcoin since 2015.
Twitter was ecstatic over the Lightning network announcement, with several users suggesting that this is the institutional swing that many proponents saw would come in 2019.
The official account of the financial markets analytics platform, Trading View, stated:
“Congratulations! It’s the best thing since sliced bread. Everything is fast and simple. Would you be kind enough to pass the torch to our community. It will be an honor for all TradingView members and tech team to participate in the Crypto Olympics.”
A twitter user Beaxy echoed the surprise of many in the crypto-community and stated:
“If you imagined Fidelity receiving a digital bitcoin torch a year ago people would’ve called you crazy! Love to see this”
With the positive-attitude of Tesla CEO Elon Musk towards cryptocurrencies and his bold prediction that digital assets will replace paper money one day, Black Moon Research commented:
“Throw it at @elonmusk
He’s just acting like he doesn’t want it, but he does. ”
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Published at Mon, 25 Feb 2019 07:03:56 +0000
