Just years ago, major banks in the United States were hesitant to even get close to cryptocurrencies because of their infancy and risks.
But today, banking giant JP Morgan has taken the initiative to be the first major lender to offer crypto trading services for its clients.
With crypto’s growing popularity and dominance, JP Morgan sees a lot of opportunities in providing digital currency services and finally breaking away from the banking industry’s hesitance to jump into it.
JP Morgan has already contacted its advisors and instructed them that they can now provide crypto trades on behalf of their clients.
Crypto products
With green lights already turned on, JP Morgan has rolled out five crypto products, namely Bitcoin Trust, Bitcoin Cash Trust, Ethereum Trust, Ethereum Classic and Osprey Funds.
One major thing that JP Morgan highlights here is that advisors cannot recommend products and can only trade based on the client’s request.
Also, for now, wealthy clients are the ones only allowed to invest in a managed bitcoin fund because they are capable of handling bitcoin’s highly volatile nature.
Hiring crypto experts
Before JP Morgan’s big announcement, the banking group was already rumored to expand into the cryptocurrency sphere because of the job listing they posted looking for experts in digital currency.
At that time, the bank was looking for people with experience in bitcoin and ethereum to fill up 34 positions that they have opened.
It is still unclear if all the positions were already filled, but one clear thing is that JP Morgan has already shown its interest in venturing into blockchain and cryptocurrencies. With this big step, it is expected that other major banks in the U.S. will follow suit.
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