JPMorgan Chase To Let Institutional Clients Use Bitcoin, Ethereum As Loan Collateral: Bloomberg
JPMorgan Chase is planning to allow its institutional clients to use their holdings in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) as collateral for loans by the end of the year.
According to a Bloomberg report that cited sources familiar with the matter, the program will be offered globally and will rely on a third-party custodian to safeguard the assets.
Bitcoin and Ethereum both climbed in the past 24 hours. BTC has risen over 1% to trade at $111,149.62 as of 7:07 a.m. EST, while ETH has climbed more than 2% during the same period.
JPMorgan CEO Slowly Softening His Criticism Towards Bitcoin
The move from JPMorgan Chase comes the same year as the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, reiterated his skepticism of Bitcoin.
In January, he said that the crypto “has no intrinsic value” and claimed that it is mainly used by sex traffickers, money launders, and for ransomware.
Lately, however, Dimon seems to be softening his negative stance towards Bitcoin and crypto, but still remains skeptical. Earlier this year, he said that he would defend clients’ “right to buy Bitcoin,” but said that the bank would not custody the digital asset.
The reported move to accept Bitcoin and Ethereum as collateral for loans comes after the bank announced in June that it would accept certain crypto-linked assets, such as ETFs (exchange-traded funds), as loan collateral.
JPMorgan had started exploring lending against Bitcoin in 2022, but the project was eventually shelved, according to the people cited in the Bloomberg report.
BlackRock CEO Changes His Stance Towards Crypto
Perhaps the biggest sign that Wall Street is slowly starting to embrace crypto is the change in BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s stance towards digital assets.
Towards the end of 2018, Fink said that BlackRock’s clients had “zero interest in crypto.” Similar to Dimon, he had also viewed Bitcoin as a tool to facilitate fraudulent activities, and labeled the crypto an “index of money laundering.”
By the middle of 2024 and into 2025, Fink’s stance on crypto had changed significantly. This coincided with the launch of BlackRock’s US spot Bitcoin ETF (IBIT), which is currently the largest in the market in terms of cumulative inflows.
Data from Farside Investors shows that BlackRock’s IBIT has seen $65.273 billion in cumulative inflows since its launch. This is substantially more than the second-biggest cumulative inflows of $12.548 billion that goes to Fidelity’s FBTC.
US spot BTC ETF flows (Source: Farside Investors)
Earlier this month, Fink also said that there is a role for Bitcoin to play in investors’ portfolios, the same way that there is a role for gold. He also acknowledged that his earlier remarks about Bitcoin were wrong.
“We were talking about Bitcoin then. It was a domain of money launderers and thieves,” he said.
While Fink’s stance towards crypto has shifted, he still does not believe that investors should allocate a large part of their portfolio towards the crypto.
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