- JPMorgan will now be offering Bitcoin to its retail clients, expanding the product it has been offering its ultra-wealthy clients.
- The bank is the first in the U.S to do so and with the new product, Bitcoin has a new $630 billion market to exploit.
JPMorgan has made cryptocurrency history by becoming the first bank in the U.S to offer Bitcoin to retail clients. As per a new report, the bank will be expanding a product it has been offering its ultra-wealthy clients and with this, it opens up Bitcoin to a new $630 billion market.
The decision to expand its Bitcoin products was made earlier this week, Business Insider reveals. Citing sources inside the bank, the publication revealed that the New York-based bank sent a memo to its financial advisors telling them to accept buy and sell orders from its wealth management clients for five crypto products.
Of the five products, four are offered by crypto giant Grayscale. These are its Bitcoin Trust, its Bitcoin Cash Trust, its Ethereum Trust and its Ethereum Classic products. The only crypto product that isn’t by Grayscale that JPMorgan will offer its clients is the Osprey Funds’ Bitcoin Trust.
Osprey Funds, which operates two other trusts – Polkadot and Algorand – expressed its excitement at the inclusion through its founder and CEO Greg King. Speaking to Forbes, he stated:
We are excited to be onboarded to the JPMorgan wealth platform. OBTC remains the lowest-priced publicly traded bitcoin fund in the U.S. and we believe JPMorgan’s clients will see value in the product.
Also Read: Bitcoin is headed for a bear market, JPMorgan warns, as crypto seems stuck at $37,000
If you can’t beat them, join them
According to Business Insider, JPMorgan’s advisors are only allowed to execute unsolicited crypto trades. They can’t recommend products – they only sell and buy on behalf of the clients.
The crypto products will be available to all clients looking for investment advice, including those who use its Chase trading app. It will also be available to affluent clients of its JPMorgan Advisors division. This is in addition to its top-tier clients, who are the richest individuals it serves under its private bank.
JPMorgan, which is the largest bank in the U.S and the sixth-largest globally, has been allowing its clients to invest in an actively managed Bitcoin fund. Crypto firm NYDIG provided the custody services for the fund.
And while it’s now expanding its crypto products, JPMorgan has not always been a big fan. In fact, its CEO Jamie Dimon still isn’t too excited by the decentralized currencies. Back in 2017, he threatened to fire employees who traded BTC, the same product he is now urging them to trade for clients.
He was also a vocal critic of the industry. He once attacked BTC stating, “I’m not a bitcoin supporter. I don’t care about bitcoin. I have no interest in it. On the other hand, clients are interested, and I don’t tell clients what to do.”
This has become the bank’s attitude towards crypto – if you can’t beat them, join them.
This week, the bank’s Asset and Wealth Management CEO Mary Callahan told Bloomberg:
A lot of our clients say that’s an asset class and I want to invest. Our job is to help them to put their money where they want to invest.
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