Benzinga | Jul 12, 2021 04:53PM EDT

Fidelity Digital Assets Expands Staff, Plans To Increase Cryptocurrency Offerings

What Happened: Fidelity Digital Assets plans to increase its staff by 100 workers, roughly a 70% increase from current numbers, according to Bloomberg.

This is in hopes of expanding Fidelity's cryptocurrency services to keep up with increasing demand from institutional investors.

Why This Matters: The 100 new employees that specialize in technology and operations will be spread throughout Boston, Dublin and Salt Lake City.

Fidelity now offers Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) but has seen the demand for Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) and wants to "be ahead of that demand," said Tom Jessop, president of Fidelity Digital Assets.

Jessop also said that he wants Fidelity to offer trading throughout more of the week, outside of the standard 9:30 a.m.- 4 p.m. schdule in place for stock transactions.

Cryptocurrencies trade 24/7, 365 days a year, and Fidelity wants to capitalize on the extended trading period.

Fidelity Digital has agreed to a partnership with BlockFi to use the Bitcoin it owns as collateral against cash loans.