[Fidelity cryptocurrency custody business will lose 60% in 2023]
Fidelity Digital Assets, a crypto-asset custody services company, has suffered a significant drop in revenue in 2023, with losses of more than £7 million.
Fidelity’s crypto asset custody business, Fidelity Digital Assets, launched in 2018 to expand its crypto services. Revenue in the past year was £545,000 (approximately $695,000), compared with £1.34 million in 2022, a 59% drop. The figures come from Fidelity's filings with the Companies House, Financial News reported.
As well as lower revenue, operating expenses also rose 32% year-on-year, climbing to £7.8 million, driven mainly by staff pay growth. Reports indicate that Fidelity Digital Assets' losses reached £7.1 million in 2023, an increase of nearly £5 million compared with £2.5 million in 2022.
Talking about the loss, Fidelity said revenue is expected to "grow as business activity increases [...] in custody and trading services as more new customers are expected to join." The reported revenue decline was attributed to lower service level agreement fees.
At the beginning of 2023, Fidelity lost its head of crypto operations, Chris Tyrer, who had been leading the European crypto space since 2019. In late May, Tyrer joined Peter Thiel-backed crypto exchange Bullish as head of strategy.
In mid-May, crypto.news reported that Synnax, a financial platform that applies artificial intelligence and is designed for credit analysis and rating, hired Luc Froehlich, the former head of crypto assets at Fidelity International, as its new chief commercial officer to lead the company business strategy and operations.
