Fidelity Investments has filed three trademark applications focusing on key areas such as NFTs Marketplaces, Metaverse Investment Services, Virtual Real Estate Investing, Cryptocurrency Trading, and many others.
Highlighting the entries, trademark attorney Mike Kondoudis in a tweet revealed that the filings were presented to the United States Patent Trademark Office [USPTO] on Dec. 21.
One of the firm’s key focus appears to be the metaverse, with Fidelity indicating that it could offer a wide range of investment services within virtual worlds including mutual funds, retirement funds, investment management, and financial planning.
Although 2022 will go down in history for the infamous collapse of FTX, the centralized crypto exchange, and the arrest of its founder and ex-CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried [aka SBF] for fraud. This has however done little effect on Fidelity when engaging with blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies.
In fact, the investment giant has been one of the key financial firms looking to make its presence feel in cryptocurrencies.
Fidelity Launch Fee-Free Trades On Ethereum And Bitcoin
The business introduced an Ethereum Index Fund in October to provide customers with exposure to Ether [ETH]. It stated in November that it would make commission-free trading of Bitcoin [BTC] and Ether available on its mobile app in addition to conventional stock investments.
By securing the rights to its name and the services it will offer after the Metaverse is developed with a larger community of active users, the company has demonstrated in its most recent move that it is aiming to get ahead of the game regarding services in the Metaverse.
Apart from Fidelity, HSBC is another financial institution to lay its claim to naming rights in the Metaverse by filing trademark applications for its name and logo.
The applications, which were submitted on December 15, also featured a number of proposals for services like processing virtual credit cards, digital media backed by NFTs, and virtual currency exchange and transfer.
The fillings from both HSBC and Fidelity demonstrate rising interest by several larger financial institutions to establish a presence in the metaverse early on.
Visa International Service Association submitted a trademark application in October [NFTs] in order for the well-known VISA logo to be used to view, access, store, monitor, manage, trade, send, receive, transmit, and exchange digital currency, virtual currency, cryptocurrency, digital and blockchain assets, and non-fungible tokens