JPMorgan Unveils Private Bitcoin (BTC) Fund for Wealthy Investors

JPMorgan has reportedly joined forces with NYDIG to roll out a new private bitcoin (BTC) fund. Sources close to the bank have hinted that the fund, which is only available to clients of JPMorgan’s Private Bank, currently has no investors but the firm is seriously pitching the bitcoin investment vehicle to prospective investors, according to reports on August 5, 2021.

JPMorgan Delving Deeper into Bitcoin

After several months in the works, Jamie Dimon’s JPMorgan, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, has finally launched its bitcoin (BTC) fund in a landmark move that shows the cryptocurrency ecosystem is gradually coming of age.

Per sources close to the matter, the passively managed bitcoin fund was developed in collaboration with New York Digital Investment Group (NYDIG) and the team has made it clear that it will be available to only a select group of its wealthy clients.

Notably, JPMorgan has described its new bitcoin investment offering as the safest and cheapest fund available on the private markets. The firm has also hinted that the fund may be converted to an exchange-traded fund (ETF) when the Securities and Exchange Commission finally starts greenlighting them.

Bitcoin’s Legitimacy Rising Steadily

JPMorgan’s complete transformation from being a totally bitcoin-averse financial institution to one that has now embraced the super volatile cryptocurrency with open arms goes a long way to show that the long-time rhetoric held by critics that bitcoin is just a tool for fraudsters, has lost its authenticity.

Even JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon in September 2017, described bitcoin (BTC) as a ‘fraud” destined to blow up, adding that “the currency isn’t going to work. “You can’t have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart. I would fire any of my workers trading bitcoin in a second, for two reasons: it is against our rules and they are stupid, and both are dangerous,” Dimon said at the time.

More recently, in March 2021, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen argued that bitcoin poses immense danger to both the public and investors.

“I don’t think that bitcoin …is widely used as a transaction mechanism. To the extent, it is used I fear it’s often for illicit finance. It’s an extremely inefficient way of conducting transactions, and the amount of energy that’s consumed in processing those transactions is staggering,” he said 

With global institutional interest in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies steadily increasing, it is expected that the legitimacy of these innovative digital assets will continue to move in an upward trajectory.

At press time, the price of bitcoin (BTC) is sitting around $38,151, with a market cap of $715.24 billion, according to CoinMarketCap.