JPMorgan Chase is getting ready to offer an actively managed Bitcoin fund to some clients, making the bank the latest and the largest American mega-bank to use crypto as an asset class. Based on the comments made by the CEO about crypto, we can also say it is also the unlikeliest bank to do so!
It is speculated that the JPMorgan Bitcoin fund will be available this summer, with institutional bitcoin shop NYDIG serving as the custody provider.
The bitcoin fund will be actively managed, unlike the passive offers by the likes of Galaxy Digital or Pantera Capital, which lets rich clients acquire and hold BTC via funds but without ever touching it themselves.
This represents an important turn for the $3 trillion bank, as, in 2017, its CEO, Jamie Dimon, called bitcoin a dangerous fraud even going so far as to say that he’d “fire in a second” any trader who touched it. He also said that “If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price for it one day.”
Dimon has backed away from such claims in recent years, but in 2020, he still confessed that bitcoin was “not my cup of tea.”
The CEO may not like crypto, but, in order to keep up with the times, the Corporate and Investment Banking division admitted in February 2021 that the increased client demand may convince the institution to deal with crypto, after all.
Source: CoinDesk.com