On Monday, during the company’s investor day event, CEO Jamie Dimon said that JPMorgan will soon allow clients to buy Bitcoin. However, he said the bank will not provide custody services for the asset.
The bank’s approach underscores a broader trend among traditional financial institutions to accommodate client demand for digital assets while maintaining a cautious stance on direct involvement. JPMorgan balances client interest with its risk management strategies by enabling Bitcoin purchases without providing custody services.
JPMorgan is among the American banks that have been accused of debanking in the last three years. However, the policies that were unfair to the crypto industry were revoked. These include “Operation Chokepoint 2.0” and the decision to drop the controversial accounting rule SAB 121.
Although the bank is still not treating crypto like other traditional assets by offering custody, the finance sector looks more open to blockchain technology.
Jamie Dimon says he still doesn’t like BTC
After the announcement, Dimon clarified that he is not a fan of Bitcoin. However, by allowing Bitcoin into the bank, it tells how much has changed since 2017. Back then, he called Bitcoin a “fraud,” said it was like the tulip bubble, and said it would burst.
He went as far as saying that he would fire any JPMorgan worker caught dealing with it. In 2024, he said that he would no longer discuss Bitcoin publicly. He also said that Bitcoin “has no intrinsic value” and is heavily used by criminals involved in sex trafficking, money laundering, and ransomware activities.
However, although he said all this, JPMorgan has stayed involved in the crypto market by letting its wealth management clients buy Bitcoin. The bank is also a registered participant in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF.
Recently, JPMorgan Chase completed its first structured trade on a public blockchain. The company had only worked in private, permissioned networks for institutional clients for years.
The testnet deal was done with the help of Ondo Finance (a leader in tokenizing real-world assets) and Chainlink (the top cross-chain oracle network). Both companies provided infrastructure, and Kinexys, JPMorgan’s blockchain division, ran it.
Meanwhile, investors are reacting on all social media, saying Dimon contradicts himself by saying he doesn’t like BTC but will allow his clients to buy.
Bitcoin rally is on
During the Asian trade session on May 19, the price of Bitcoin dropped sharply by 4%. It fell from an “important level,” as Glassnode put it. The platform for analyzing data showed that Bitcoin’s rise stopped just below $106,600, a key mark where 31,000 BTC are held.
Also, after Moody’s downgraded the US credit rating and US Treasury yields went up, investors became more interested in risky assets like Bitcoin. However, the macroeconomic pressures got stronger and influenced the drop.
Meanwhile, Strategy (MSTR) bought 7,390 BTC for about $764.9 million at $103,498 per Bitcoin on average. With this new purchase, the company now has a total of 576,230 BTC in Bitcoin, worth about $60 billion at the current market price of $105,000 per Bitcoin. The average price at which Strategy bought all of its bitcoins is now $69,726.
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