Topic: [2021-07-22] JPMorgan Opens Crypto Trading To All Clients (Read 214 times)

all the time, same old trick.

Indeed, it's only a small battle; winning the war is still far.
Still, it feels good 


JPM doesn't deliver the freedom Bitcoin does. JPM just gives a taste from the honey jar.

The vast majority of people don't come to Bitcoin for the freedom, they come for the wealth. Some may learn at some point that Bitcoin is more than that, some won't. But as long as they do come for Bitcoin, a first step is made.

However, JPM doesn't deliver that, since they don't sell actual Bitcoin. What JPM does, on the other hand, is to give more legitimacy to Bitcoin. This should make more people come and buy actual Bitcoin, learn about freedom and get to "join us".

So it's rather debatable who "wins" in this, it may end up by how each and everybody reading about this will behave: will they all turn to JPM for buying "shares" or will some also come and buy the real deal?

I don't disagree, but we will never convince everyone and there will always be a demand for bitcoin price exposure through traditional fiat markets. The older generation who have spent 60+ years building up their wealth in the fiat system have little desire to change, and just want profits. Plenty of people use bitcoin simply to trade for profits rather than as a peer to peer currency. Hell, even on this forum, we regularly see people saying how great KYC is, how it is good to complete it, how centralized exchanges are great, how much they can be trusted, how more government regulations will be a good think, and other such nonsense.

We keep developing, adopting, using, promoting bitcoin. After all, 1 BTC = 1 BTC.

Buffet? I doubt it. Unlike JPMorgan offering bitcoin funds to their clients, there is little to be gained for Berkshire Hathaway from bitcoin, so there is no reason for Buffet to publicly change his stance.

The storyline from mainstream news media from 3 years ago had him and Warren Buffett that were calling bitcoin a fraud? Warren had a more offensive term to describe it, however hehe. Do you reckon he will change his opinion on bitcoin also? That would certainly change the negative attitude of all mainstream investors.

When you say it that way, it seems like a lot of work, and it is lol. I have this experience trying to share what I have learned to a boomer and he just said that it takes a lot of work and can't comprehend what I'm doing and says "that's a lot of clicks". This is gonna be perfect with that kind of setup if they already have that. Setting up an account with a wealth management company could be tiresome as well.

This is definitely the downside with regards to that. It's always going to be the fiat to bow to. It's always that and what else is there? It's so intertwined with the financial system today that even cryptocurrencies are tied to it.

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I like the idea of that "freedom management". It's being free from ties and control over the over inflated fiat system. But since the value of Bitcoin is tied with fiat, how can we win?

We haven't won yet.  This is still the "fight" stage. 

As a community we need to get the message out there that Bitcoin isn't necessarily about "wealth management", but about freedom management.  Anyone who wants access to Bitcoin is kinda missing the point if they're handing the freedom part over to JPM.  If we allow investment bankers to subvert the narrative and convince everyone this is just another asset class, then we won't win.  They will.   

The benefits are that a lot of people are already set up with a broker, investment company, wealth management company, or similar. If the choice is between logging in to their account and clicking on "Bitcoin ETF" or phoning their advisor and saying "I want to buy $10k for Greyscale Bitcoin Trust", versus researching and downloading a wallet, backing up seed phrases, researching and signing up for an exchange, completing KYC if you choose a centralized exchange, linking payment methods, buying and withdrawing bitcoin, learning about addresses and transactions, making sure your own security set up is good enough, etc., then a lot of people, particularly the older generation, will opt for the first option. You can also buy many of these ETFs, trusts, etc., through tax advantaged accounts such as an IRA.

The downsides are significant, though. You don't own any bitcoin, you can't withdraw it, hold it, spend it, trade it, swap it, exchange it, etc. All you can do with your bitcoin trust is sell it back to the broker you bought it from. You have to pay their fees, both on buying and selling and any ongoing management costs. You are trusting multiple third parties, not just to not scam you and stay honest, but also to stay solvent. These third parties are largely based on the fiat banking system, and so if fiat collapses, they could well collapse too along with their managed funds, meaning your bitcoin investment doesn't actually provide a hedge against fiat. You also have to trust that the investment will actually accurately track the price of bitcoin. It's a very poor substitute for the real thing, but perfect for boomer types who read about bitcoin in their daily morning newspaper and decide they want to put a thousand dollars on it.

Do you think there's a significant advantage to doing that route instead of owning the real thing instead? I can't seem to think of any other thing rather than the ease of transactions with the bank. Maybe this could be an interesting point to call out to when you are in a conversation with someone who has less exposure to cryptocurrency in general.

Yes, exactly. It's nothing new, and various bitcoin trusts and ETFs have existed for a number of years. I've been able to buy bitcoin price tracker vehicles via my broker for quite a while, not that I've ever been tempted to since I own the real thing instead. But it perfectly caters to people who are interested in the price but don't care about the technology or actually using bitcoin as a currency or owning it themselves.

They were never going to announce that. Why would they encourage people to buy real bitcoin which they could then transfer off of their JPMorgan account and hold for themselves? No profits to be made there. Better to offer an investment vehicle they cannot withdraw and are stuck holding their assets with JPMorgan and paying their fees.

I doubt it. JPMorgan aren't buying bitcoin themselves like Tesla are doing; they are simply offering it to their customers.

After making bitcoin look like a fraudulent asset now they are back seeing this is a fast growing industry to tap into, these jokers wise decision anyway..

And why do I feel like some gold minded bankers and some risk managers playing it safe lost their jobs for not indicating this to be a profitable asset that they have missed out on an early investment.

When I first read the title, I was just hoping for another PayPal style adoption. But it looks like that is not the case. JP Morgan simply don't want to take the risk of dealing with cryptocurrency directly. For them, dealing with Greyscale is safer than dealing directly in BTC or ETH. I don't have an issue here, but it would have been a big boost for Bitcoin to have one of the largest banks accepting it. Perhaps this is what we should expect from the other large institutions as well? Most of them would like to deal with cryptocurrency in an indirect manner.

Thanks for clarifying my thoughts. So they are in partnership with Greyscale and then basically, they are doing that indirect thing. Making sure that their client is safe by "not" directly buying Bitcoin (some exposure) and not affected proportionally tied to the BTC price but to the performance of Greyscale.

I think this is ideal for those less tech savvy people that don't want to go into the hassle of creating wallets, safe keeping seed phrases and registering to exchanges, etc.

They are offering their clients access to four products from Greyscale - Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cash Trust, Ethereum Trust, and Ethereum Classic Trust - and one from Osprey - their Bitcoin Trust. All are products which can be thought of as like ETFs. Shares in these trusts can be bought and sold on the open market without the buyer having to think about coins, keys, wallets, seed phrases, etc., with the obvious disadvantages of the fact that you don't actually own any bitcoin, and you must pay the trust's fees. You can buy and hold them in tax advantaged accounts though.

So in the same way you can buy exposure to the price of gold without ever actually buying gold, JPMorgan clients can buy exposure to the price of bitcoin without ever actually buying bitcoin.

Are they going to openly trade the market or just trade the stocks of the companies that are invested in crypto? I have read somewhere that they are looking for different ways to let their clients be involved in cryptocurrency somehow, and a safe way they have done that is they trade the stocks with somehow relation to cryptocurrency. I think this is still the case with this.

That's what you call a character development and if this was a book, I would probably be trusting Dimon already but given that he is an E away from being a demon, I don't think that I still don't trust him no matter what because I know that besides the obvious greed, I think that there's an ulterior motive to all of this given that most businessmen can't hold loyalty since they care more about their own interests more than anything.

Money. Profits. Greed.

A brief timeline of Dimon's statements on bitcoin:

They ignore you:
2013 - Bitcoin developers are going to try and eat our lunch and that’s fine

Then they laugh at you:
2014 - Bitcoin is a terrible store of value
2015 - Bitcoin will not survive

Then they fight you:
2016 - Bitcoin is going nowhere
2017 - Bitcoin is a fraud, I will fire anyone trading bitcoin

Then you win:
2018 - I regret calling bitcoin a fraud
2019 - We will create our own cryptocurrency
2020 - We will offer banking services to Coinbase and Gemini
2021 - We will offer bitcoin to our clients

Quite a turn around in 8 years. Wonder what will happen in the next 8.

What changed his mind? If I recall correctly Jamie Dimon said he would fire anyone from JPMorgan if they trade or invest in bitcoin. He also said that bitcoin would only be successful in a dystopian society. Is he wrong or are in a dystopian society hehehe.

Clearly. Just the change of optics from such a company, such a pillar of the banking system, is imho a huge step forward in Bitcoin gaining legitimacy exactly between the old style banking dinosaurs. And if they want a share of the profits, they'll have to stop the idiotic rhetoric less and less people believe and start following the trend (i.e. join us and no longer fight us).

And I don't expect that the interaction between crypto world and banking system can go forward without more regulations/legislation. I don't know how good/bad will they be, some signals from EU are quite concerning for example, but well... we cannot simply expect that the old system will give up easily, right?

What were we expecting? Rich kids look for profits and will make money from the disproportionate fees of their new crypto-based financial products. Nothing new, it's clear that they would have done this. I'd just like to add that at the adoption level, this is certainly not good news. These are not the announcements that will scale bitcoin as a network. In short, such news leave me unimpressed and unexcited.

If you can't beat them, join them.

Jamie Dimon and JPMorgan actually deserve at least a little props here. There will be a lot of old money bankers who flat out refuse to get involved in bitcoin or crypto, and will lose a lot of customers and a lot of money along the way. At least Dimon had the insight to admit he was wrong and the foresight to see what is coming next. People want access to bitcoin, and they will take their investments to whoever is willing to offer that to them. The institutions which refuse to change are the ones which will lose out.

However, I have no doubt that as time goes on Dimon will continue to be an enemy of bitcoin. He can see where things are going, and so he's changed his mind for his own profits. They will give you access to bitcoin, but only if you store it with them. They will lobby for more regulations to benefit themselves. They will continue to be anti-bitcoin and anti-decentralization. They just want their profits.

....And it's happening. I guess that's not investment directly into crypto, however, even the indirect investments should help that more institutional money will come into crypto markets. Right? JPMorgan is now a good example for "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."


According to Forbes (and many other news papers) JPMorgan has "become the first major US bank to provide all wealth-management clients with access to bitcoin and other cryptocurrency funds"