Financial Giant Fidelity Files Trademarks for Crypto, NFT, and Metaverse Products
Fidelity Investments, a major financial services firm with $10 trillion in assets under administration, has filed several trademark applications for a wide range of cryptocurrency, non-fungible token (NFT), and metaverse products and services.
Fidelity’s Crypto and Metaverse Trademark Applications
Fidelity Investments filed three trademark applications with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) last week for a wide range of cryptocurrency, non-fungible token (NFT), and metaverse products and services. Fidelity has $9.6 trillion in assets under administration as of Sept. 30; the financial services firm serves about 40 million individual investors.
Mike Kondoudis, a USPTO-licensed trademark attorney, tweeted Monday:
Fidelity has plans for the metaverse! The company has filed 3 trademark applications covering NFTs + NFT marketplaces, metaverse investment services, virtual real estate investing, cryptocurrency trading, and more.
The financial services giant’s trademark applications were filed on Dec. 21. Their serial numbers are 97727473, 97727439, and 97727409.
The applications specifically detail a vast number of products and services “in the metaverse and other virtual worlds,” including mutual fund investment services, retirement fund investment services, investment management services, financial planning, securities brokerage services, money management, financial analysis, and investment management.
Fidelity is no stranger to the metaverse. In April, the financial services firm opened a multi-level learning center called “The Fidelity Stack” in Decentraland. The firm also launched a metaverse exchange-traded fund (ETF) in the same month.
In November, Fidelity Investments began offering commission-free retail bitcoin and ether trading. However, its subsidiary Fidelity Digital Assets has been offering bitcoin services to institutional investors for several years and recently began offering ether trading. The firm published a report earlier this year, stating: “Bitcoin’s first technological breakthrough was not as a superior payment technology but as a superior form of money. As a monetary good, bitcoin is unique.”
A growing number of big corporations are filing cryptocurrency and metaverse-related trademark applications with the USPTO. This month, banking giant HSBC filed trademark applications for a range of digital currency and metaverse products. In October, Visa, Paypal, and Western Union similarly filed crypto-related trademark applications. Last month, JPMorgan Chase was granted a wallet trademark covering various virtual currency and payment services.
