JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that the Wall Street -money shooter is planning to offer Bitcoin (BTC) to its customers in a grim shift from his historical attitude towards digital active.
During the JPMorgan investor day Dimon repeated that he is “not a fan” of Bitcoin, but acknowledged that customers will continue to demand access.
He said:
“I don’t think you should smoke, but I defend your right to smoke. I defend your right to buy Bitcoin.”
He also clarified that the bank does not intend to offer storage services.
Dimon maintains skepticism
Dimon’s criticism of Crypto is consistent with previous comments. In an interview in January he called Bitcoin ‘worthless’. He tied it to criminal activities and repeated concern in his testimony of 2023, in which he argued for Close the industry completely.
At the World Economic Forum 2024 in Davos, he Referred to Bitcoin as a “pet”, while in April of the same year, Dimon Crypto called a ‘ponzi schedule’.
In his comments from May 19, he also stated that “blockchain doesn’t matter that much” when people think. However, JPMorgan continued to build an infrastructure around blockchain technology for institutional use.
Earlier this month, Kinexys completed a test transaction that bridged his private network to a public Layer-1 blockchain, using Tokenized short-term treasury assets and real-time settlement protocols. Chainlink and Ondo Finance took part in this pilot.
In addition, Kinexys processes more than $ 2 billion in transactions every day and plans to scale up dollar-euro settlements with the help of JPM Coin, the own token of JPMorgan.
JPMorgan increases the exposure to crypto
In the middle of the comments about Bitcoin offer, JPMorgan’s 13F submit With the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the first quarter of 2025, a dramatic increase in exposure to crypto showed by stock market funds (ETFs).
From March 31, the company reported $ 16.3 million to crypto-related companies $ 1 million at the end of 2024. The Crypto-exposure of the lender is mainly via Bitcoin and Ethereum-linked instruments.
From March 31, JPMorgan had just over 263,000 shares of BlackRock’s Ishares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and around 3,000 shares of Bitwise’s place Bitcoin ETF (BITB).
The lender also has shares of Grayscale’s Bitcoin Trust (GBTC) and Mini Trust ETFS, Fidelity’s Wise Origin’s Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) and new allocations to Bitwise and Franklin Templeton Ethereum products.
The company’s crypto-related companies are only a small part of the $ 4.4 trillion In assets in management At the end of the first quarter.
It is unclear how much of the portfolio a reflection is of patented positioning versus facilitation of customer demand. The bank has previously clarified that keeping some ETF assignments can be part of its market services.
