Topic: [2017-11-21] JPMorgan Capitulates, May Help Clients Trade Bitcoin Futures (Read 2195 times)

These people can smell the scent of money from afar and when they realized that the demand for something can be real soon they will take into the beach and have fun too. What we are seeing today is just normal reactions for something that is new and since these people are representing institutions which have traditionally been there for a long time, of course they would also be careful and will not take the plunge right away but when they feel that the attraction is irresistible they would throw the towel and exploit the opportunity. I am sure their clients are already pressuring them to include Bitcoin in the portfolio since their clients are always watching the rise and rise of Bitcoin.

What a Big Whale, This JP Morgan is good at manipulating the prices. Well, He is now irrelevant for Bitcoin keeps on increasing and I do feel that anytime this guy could do something to make Bitcoin's price dip for his own benefit.

Isn't it too good to be true that this guy would just oppose his statements regarding Bitcoin?. I really doubt it. This action maybe just an initiation for another Big FUD. He is a well known investor and for sure He has a big pride to protect, with his action he is just admitting that his past statements regarding Bitcoin are wrong which will hurt his pride, right?.

This is just my observation, if i am true on my assumptions, and the Big FUD will make BTC dip he will just go again and say " I told you all, BTC is crap. ", and then buys again at the lower prices and continue to release FUD and at some point he will go silent again to make BTC's price rise , profit from it and do it all over again. What a dick.

Manipulation at its finest!

It was obvious from the very beginning that it was nothing more than an attempt to get the market to go down, and it did. He abused the position of JPMorgan in the financial world to influence the market in a low life manner.

At some point he won't dare to talk like that again, because no matter how we look at it, it's blatant market manipulation, which isn't allowed in any form or shape when it comes to institutions.

Eventually, all skeptic banks will allow their client to trade Bitcoin tied futures and other related products. It's an extra way of generating profit, and that for a bank is the most important thing ~ let's not forget that it is a business.

On September 12, Jamie Dimon caused a stir (and selloff) within the cryptocurrency community when he lashed out at bitcoin, calling it a "fraud" which is "worse than tulip bulbs, predicting "it won't end well", will "blow up" and "someone is going to get killed." Oh, and just to make it clear, "any JPM trader caught trading bitcoin" would be "fired for being stupid."

After briefly plunging, since then the price of Bitcoin has doubled, and earlier today, Bloomberg quoted money manager David Kotok who said that "clients bring up bitcoin all the time. They think it’s cool. It has the newness, which is attractive to some people, though others would say newness is a risk they don’t want to take." For banks, as Lloyd Blankfein learned over the past month, this means they have a choice: either get with it, and make money on the latest investing craze, or stand aside and make nothing.

And now, none other than JPMorgan is "getting with it", because as the WSJ reports, despite Dimon's guarantee of a pink slip for any trader caught transaction in bitcoin, the bank is now looking at business opportunities in the planned bitcoin-futures market, which the CME has said it will launch by the end of the year. Specifically, J.P. Morgan is considering whether to provide its clients access to CME’s new bitcoin product through its futures-brokerage unit. That, the WSJ reports, means the bank’s customers could use it to trade bitcoin futures while J.P. Morgan collects fees for such services, seemingly in violation of its fiduciary duty considering its CEO just two months ago called the product a "fraud."

Oops.

The reversal is not definitive yet, and the process has involved assessing whether there is demand among J.P. Morgan’s customers for the proposed CME bitcoin contract, according to the WSJ source, although judging by the reverse inquiry, there clearly is.

And where JPM goes, others are sure to follow:
But, as everyone knows courtesy of repeat media appearances by the outspoken CEO, none of those banks has chief executive who has been as critical of bitcoin as Dimon, who has blasted it as a “fraud” and compared it with past financial bubbles. “If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you will pay the price for it one day,” he told a conference last month.

And now, in delightful irony, JPM is preparing to make money by offering this "fraud" to clients. This, also, just days after JPM was busted for assisting money laundering in Switzerland after accusing bitcoin of being used as a tool for money laundering.

Here, we naturally commisserate with the JPM chief: In a world in which as Mike Novogratz said earlier, retail interest in equities has been waning over the past decade as "investors no longer trust financial institutions", the only alternative to grip the public's trading and investing interest has been the very bitcoin (and other digital currencies) so loathed by establishment commercial and central banks, especially since the "money" is printed not by some central bank, but the universe of users themselves: a lack of control central banks would never willingly cede.

JPM's looming decision about whether to let customers trade bitcoin futures underscores the challenges that Wall Street firms face as the cryptocurrency emerges from the shadowy margins of the financial markets and draws growing investor interest. Meanwhile, CME CEO Terrence Duffy said in a CNBC interview this month he expects trading in bitcoin futures to begin the second week of December. Launching futures would bring the virtual currency a big step closer to the financial mainstream, making it easier for both large financial firms and retail investors to trade it.

Furthermore, as we showed in September, J.P. Morgan already gladly collects commcision for handling client trades of Bitcoin XBT, an ETN trading in Europe and tracking bitcoin. While the bank has said it doesn’t take positions in the note and simply routes customers’ buy and sell orders electronically to exchanges, it wouldn't be the first time JPM has lied about it considers prop trades (see the London Whale).

In any case, brokering trades in bitcoin futures would be similar, as JPM would be happy to collect a spread every time a client buys or sell the "fraud." And once in, JPM will have no choice but - as a matter of ego - to be the biggest. J.P. Morgan is the second-biggest futures broker in the U.S., second only to Goldman, CFTC data show.

And as more and more Wall Street firms scramble to offer the retail public access to bitcoin, last week IB CEO Thomas Peterffy, warned that CME needs to ring-fence its system for clearing bitcoin futures trades from the rest of its markets, or else losses in bitcoin could end up rippling through the broader financial system.
Ironically, this legitimate warning appears to have only cemented JPM's resolve to become a bitcoin middleman, and soon, principal. Which brings us to a question we first asked two months ago: "which is it Jamie?"

Source: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-11-21/jpmorgan-capitulates-may-help-clients-trade-bitcoin-futures-fee