Fidelity Investments Using Bitcoin for Employee Cafeteria

On March 24, 2017, reports emerged that Fidelity Investments, one of the world's largest asset managers with over $2 trillion in assets under management, had been experimenting with Bitcoin by allowing employees to use the cryptocurrency to pay for food in company cafeterias. This internal pilot program represented one of the first instances of a major traditional financial institution directly integrating Bitcoin into its operations, even if only in a limited, experimental capacity.

The news suggested that serious financial institutions were taking Bitcoin seriously enough to gain hands-on experience with the technology rather than dismissing it out of hand.

Fidelity's Bitcoin experimentation was significant because it signaled that even conservative, established financial institutions recognized they needed to understand cryptocurrency technology and its potential implications for their business. The company had created an internal team dedicated to blockchain and cryptocurrency research, and the cafeteria payment pilot provided employees with practical experience using Bitcoin for everyday transactions.

Fidelity CEO Abigail Johnson had previously expressed interest in Bitcoin and blockchain technology, and the company was mining Bitcoin in-house to learn about the process. This hands-on approach contrasted sharply with the dismissive attitude many traditional financial institutions took toward cryptocurrency.The news was particularly well-timed, coming just two weeks after the SEC's ETF rejection, and reminded the Bitcoin community that institutional interest in cryptocurrency extended beyond just ETF products to include direct experimentation and learning by major financial players.