JPMorgan Chase offered an in-house bitcoin fund for its Private Bank clients for the first time this week.
The fund is offered in partnership with NYDIG
The passively managed fund has no investments from clients yet. That could change soon, as advisers were tipped off about the fund in a phone call with the bank this week. The fund is offered in partnership with NYDIG, the bitcoin arm of wealth management firm Stone Ridge.
The CEO of JPMorgan Jamie Dimo was previously known to criticize Bitcoin and even once said he would fire any JPMorgan employee who traded Bitcoin. More recently, however, he has said that customers want to invest in Bitcoins, so JPMorgan has a responsibility to deliver crypto investments safely.
The list of banks diving into crypto is getting longer
In July, JPMorgan was one of the first major banks to announce that retail wealth management clients would be able to invest in crypto products. Clients do not have to be in direct contact with the firm’s advisers to invest in the products – anyone from ultra-wealthy private bank clients to users of Wall Street Bank’s trading app Chase can do so.
Other banks have begun offering crypto products in the past year, including Morgan Stanley, which gave its wealth management clients access to crypto funds in March, and Bank of America, which reportedly began offering exchange-traded crypto products to wealthy investors last month.
