JPMorgan pitching Bitcoin fund to wealthy clients, CoinDesk says

JPMorgan Chase is pitching a Bitcoin fund to wealthy clients, according to CoinDesk.

The firm is offering customers of JPMorgan Private Bank a passively managed fund in partnership with NYDIG, CoinDesk said, citing two people familiar with the matter. It doesn’t yet have any investments from clients, but the bank held a call with advisors recently, the people told CoinDesk. NYDIG is a Bitcoin-focused institutional-grade platform for secure custody, execution, asset management and more, and is a subsidiary of Stone Ridge, an alternative asset manager.

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The fund will be presented to clients as the safest and cheapest Bitcoin investment vehicle available on the private markets, CoinDesk said, citing the sources. CoinDesk reported in April that JPMorgan was planning to offer such a fund.

Traditional financial companies have been moving to offer crypto assets due to increasing client demand as the space matures and after a huge run-up in digital-asset prices over the past couple of years. The likes of Morgan Stanley and DBS Group Holdings Ltd. are getting in on digital assets as well.

JPMorgan added the crypto exchanges Coinbase and Gemini Trust Co. as banking clients last year. It launched JPM Coin in 2019 to speed up payments between corporate customers.

JPMorgan representatives declined to comment on the CoinDesk report when contacted by Bloomberg.