JP Morgan was until recently staunchly against cryptocurrency, but is now reportedly launching a Bitcoin fund for its high-net worth clients, via its private banking arm.
The Bitcoin fund presently being pitched to the American bank’s wealthy clients is passively managed, according a Coindesk report, which cites two sources familiar with the matter.
Coindesk added that its private bank advisors were only yesterday briefed on the product and it had yet to secure investments into the fund from clients.
The American bank will pitch the fund as the safest and cheapest Bitcoin investment vehicle available on the private markets, the report noted.
JP boss Jamie Dimon is famously not a fan of Bitcoin or crypto and has made several public comments criticising or warning investors off crypto and digital assets.
He called Bitcoin a fraud in 2017, before walking back slightly in 2018 saying he regretted that particular comment whilst maintaining that he was not interested in the Bitcoin subject at all.
More recently, in a May 2021 interview with CNBC, Dimon said “I am not a Bitcoin supporter, I don’t really care about Bitcoin” but “clients are interested and I don’t tell clients what to do”.
Coindesk’s report highlighted a suggestion that the private Bitcoin fund could end up being ‘an easy port over’ to a Bitcoin exchange traded fund, but added that JP Morgan is presently not among the financial firms with applications for Bitcoin ETFs in for review at the SEC.