Former Barclays Digital Assets Chief Joins Fidelity as Institutional Interest Continues Upward

Fidelity Investments, a United States-based company offering clients financial planning and advice, wealth management services as well as trading and brokerage services, has hired Chris Tyrer, a former head of digital assets at Barclays, according to reports on May 4, 2019.

According to to Chris’ LinkedIn profile update, he got hired at the end of April , however, further details concerning his new position has not been revealed, except for the mention of Digital assets.

Reportedly, Tyrer served as the head and managing director of digital assets projects at Barclays for nearly one year before leaving in 2018 and before that, he also functioned as the head of commodity trading at the bank from 2015-2017.

For those who are unaware, initially joined Barclays in 2001 and functioned as the director and global head of crude oil trading until 2011.

He also had a short stint at Mercuria Energy Group as senior crude oil trader, before rejoining Barclays in 2015.

In his most recent job specification at Barclays, Tyrer helped the bank explore the best possible ways to venture into the volatile world of cryptocurrencies.

In 2018, Barclays nurtured the idea of launching a cryptocurrency trading desk, but later decided to indefinitely suspend the launch of its crypto trading service and the bank’s CEO has made it clear that cryptos are not in its cards for now.

Financial Institutions Eyeing Bitcoin

Despite the nascent and seemingly unregulated nature of the cryptospace, a handful of large banks, including CitiGroup Inc and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., are closely monitoring the space, in a bid to launch their custodial, trading or even crypto derivatives products.

Interestingly, earlier in April, 2019, Fidelity announced the hiring of Christine Sandler, director of Institutional sales at Coinbase and the former also officially launched its crypto trading and custody service last month.

It’s worth noting that its not only traditional financial institutions that are scampering onto the crypto and blockchain technology bandwagon.

Earlier in February 2019, Bitcoin Exchange Guide informed that social media giant, Facebook was looking to add 13 new crypto and distributed ledger technology (DLT) experts onto its team.

In related news, two days ago, Bitcoin Exchange Guide reported that Digitex had confirmed it had hired new developers from SmartDec to create a robust platform for its crypto futures contracts.

Read Also: New Fidelity Survey: Institutional Investors are Gaining Interest in Crypto