Thursday, December 12, 2013

UPDATE Fidelity Halts Bitcoin Investments For IRAs

Earlier today, I reported that on a MarketWatch report that Fidelity was allowing Bitcoin in IRAs. They have apparently reversed their decision.

MarketWatch now reports:
Fidelity Investments is no longer allowing clients to invest in the virtual currency bitcoin through SecondMarket’s Bitcoin Investment Trust, a representative for Fidelity told MarketWatch on Thursday.

MarketWatch reported Wednesday that certain Fidelity clients could invest in the Bitcoin Investment Trust through their IRAs. That information was based on an interview with Barry Silbert, chief executive of SecondMarket. Read Wednesday’s post here.

On Thursday,  a Fidelity spokesman told MarketWatch that such investments are no longer allowed. The spokesman couldn’t confirm when or why the policy was changed.

“On an individual basis, we allowed an investor to invest in that Bitcoin Investment Trust,” said Rob Beauregard, director of public relations at Fidelity, in a telephone interview Thursday morning. “We are no longer allowing that.”

He continued: “We’re not commenting right now on why that was first allowed. There are reviews going on, and we’ll make a decision at a later date. At this time, it is not available on our retail platform.”

It appears to me as though the initial transaction was probably cleared by a mid-level exec, when the approval came to the attention of more senior execs, who fear the government and their regulations, Bitcoin investments were quashed.

3 comments:

  1. Chalk up another point for R-dub!

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  2. Fidelity’s director of public relations announced that the firm was no longer allowing its clients to invest in the Bitcoin Investment Trust. http://bit.ly/BitcoinLost

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  3. About "Fidelity Halts Bitcoin Investments For IRAs" whatever you have shared here seems to me sound like very nice and hopefully I'm very impressed to read about in such allocation. Thanks dude :)

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