JPMorgan’s crypto and blockchain projects are gaining traction. In its private wealth division, the bank is also planning to deliver an actively managed bitcoin fund to clients. JPMorgan will become the new and largest US megabank to embrace cryptocurrency as an asset class with this latest leap. According to the news, which was first published by CoinDesk on Monday, the bitcoin fund could be launched as soon as this summer. The change will also indicate a shift in the company’s attitude toward cryptocurrencies, as CEO Jamie Dimon allegedly called bitcoin a risky scam in 2017 and threatened to fire workers who traded bitcoin. According to CNBC, Morgan Stanley became the first large US bank to give its wealthy clients access to bitcoin funds after they requested exposure to the cryptocurrency last month.
JPMorgan did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the progress. Even though the bitcoin fund is JPMorgan’s most recent step, its finance, commercial banking, and wealth management divisions have increasingly matured in their approach to crypto and blockchain. According to CoinDesk, the bank’s research analysts frequently issue market insight on bitcoin’s price and prospects in client-accessible studies. It had checked blockchain’s decentralized network in space in February to see whether two machines could transact autonomously. According to a statement from GomSpace, a Nasdaq-listed manufacturer and supplier of nanosatellites for customers in the academic, government, and commercial sectors, the experiment involved making blockchain-based transfers between satellites in space, “which validated the approach towards a decentralized network where contact with the earth is not necessary.”
As a result, the solution would result in cost savings for both sending and receiving banks. “JPMorgan’s entry into blockchain would be extremely beneficial to the institutional side of fund transactions. It is attempting to resolve the clearing and settlement issue that occurs in bank-to-bank transactions and takes several days to resolve. JPMorgan and banks will be able to settle it in near real-time using blockchain,” Ashish Agarwal, a blockchain expert and the founder of PayO, a neo banking platform for SMEs, told Financial Express Online.
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