Ironically, given CEO Jamie Dimon’s distrust of the industry, JPM JPM +1.1%organ reportedly became the first major U.S. bank to give all wealth management clients access to bitcoin and other cryptocurrency funds.
Advisors to JPMorgan’s $630 billion wealth management division can now accept buy and sell orders for five cryptocurrency products, including Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cash Trust, Ethereum Trust, Ethereum Classic and Osprey Funds’ Bitcoin Trust. The policy change went into effect July 19, according to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider.
We are pleased to join the JPMorgan wealth platform.” OBTC remains the cheapest publicly traded bitcoin fund in the U.S., and we are confident that JPMorgan clients will see value in this product,” Greg King, founder and CEO of Osprey Funds, told Forbes.
The new policy applies to all JPMorgan clients, including self-regulated clients using the Chase trading app, high net worth clients of JPMorgan Advisors and the most affluent clients served by a private bank. Advisors are not allowed to recommend crypto products to clients, and clients must request crypto trades themselves.
Previously, JPM only allowed private clients to invest in an actively managed bitcoin fund, and cryptocurrency firm NYDIG provided custodial services.
The expansion of access to crypto products for JPMorgan clients comes amid growing retail customer interest in the cryptocurrency market, especially after bitcoin hit a record high price of $65,654 on April 14, 2021. Since then, the market has deflated – as of this writing, bitcoin is trading at $32,263 – but retail demand for this volatile asset class as a store of value or portfolio diversifier remains high. Mary Callahan Erdos, head of asset and wealth management at JPMorgan, told Bloomberg in July that many of the bank’s clients want to invest in digital currencies.
