Jamie Dimon finally caved

For a while, it felt like Jamie Dimon hated crypto almost as much as his ultimate nemesis: work from home policies.

Back in 2017, he threatened to fire any JPMorgan trader caught buying bitcoin, calling it a “fraud.” In a 2023 Senate hearing, he said that “If I was the government, I’d close it down.” At the World Economic Forum in 2024, he called bitcoin a “pet rock” that does nothing, before declaring he was done talking about it.

But if there’s one thing we’ve learned about billionaires, it’s that they’re never done talking about anything.

Today, Bloomberg reported that JPMorgan plans to start allowing institutional clients to use their holdings of bitcoin and ether as collateral for loans by the end of the year—embracing the asset class that was once shunned by Wall Street. The new policy will work by enabling a third-party custodian to oversee the tokens.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

Ever since the GOP became the party of cryptocurrency, Wall Street has followed suit and gone all-in on digital assets.

The full-throated embrace of bitcoin kicked off when the SEC approved the first spot bitcoin ETF in January 2024. Now, more and more Wall Street brokerages are letting retail investors in on the action, including Morgan Stanley, Fidelity, and State Street.

The trend has, of course, coincided with a bull market for crypto. Over the past 12 months, bitcoin has climbed 62.24%, while ether is up 55.15%.

But although it earned the stamp of approval from Wall Street, the industry remains mired in degeneracy, proliferated with scams, meme coins, and conflicts of interest.

If this all reminds you of the last crypto bull market before the epic crash, you’re not alone. But for now at least, the dollar signs in their eyes seem to have clouded traders’ vision.—LB