From the article: "Customers are able to buy and sell bitcoin, although they will not be able to transfer it to a self-custody wallet where the user controls their private keys" Dear Fidelity, those are not Bitcoins.
WHAT!!! @johnarb WTF is this shit?!? "...When trading, customers will not be charged a “fee,” but a 1% spread, which Fidelity has defined as “the difference between the price at which you buy or sell crypto in your Fidelity Crypto account and the price at which Fidelity Digital Assets fills your order.” This spread will be visible in the client execution price..." That is absolute BS, no?!?! How can they hold your money hostage??! They cannot do that with cash. John, please tell everyone here this is sound fiduciary duty or something.
It's custodial bitcoins. PayPal started with something similar, you can buy bitcoins and other cryptos but could not withdraw, eventually PayPal enabled it after a while Fidelity is a good company so I'm pretty sure they would actually hold the bitcoins they sell For certain professionals, like RIA's, custodial bitcoins are a requirement and as they are not allowed by law to hold the private keys to the bitcoins in the local wallets for their clients
I suspect the final regs. From the regulators may restrict US-based entities from taking possession or make it prohibitively expensive. Kind of like requesting a stock certificate.