ETFs
Largest US Bank Invests in Spot BTC ETFs While Dimon Remains a Bitcoin Hater ⋆ ZyCrypto
In a significant development highlighting the growing interest of traditional financial institutions in Bitcoin (BTC), JPMorgan, the largest bank in the United States with $2.6 trillion in assets under management, holds shares in funds traded in exchange (ETF) BTC spot.
In a May 10 13F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), JPMorgan Chase disclosed holding approximately $760,000 worth of shares of the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO), iShares Bitcoin Trust ( IBIT) from BlackRock and the Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund from Fidelity. (FBTC), Grayscale Bitcoin Trust (GBTC), and the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF. The bank also has exposure to Bitcoin Depot Inc., a Bitcoin ATM provider.
James Seyffart, analyst at Bloomberg ETF observed in an article on X, the 13F documents are like “snapshots” of institutional long positions on March 31. This suggests that JPMorgan’s exposure to the benchmark cryptocurrency could be even greater as the 13F does not take into account shorts or derivatives.
The second gave the green light for the listing and trading of 11 spot BTC ETFs on US stock exchanges in mid-January, and the products have since enjoyed exceptional success, raking in billions of dollars in inflows.
The revelation follows a similar process deposit from JPMorgan rival Wells Fargo, which revealed the same day that it had purchased shares of Grayscale’s GBTC and also had exposure to the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) and Bitcoin Depot.
Despite Bitcoin’s growing adoption on Wall Street, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon remains one of BTC’s strongest critics.
Dimon remains fiercely opposed to BTC
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has been dumping cryptocurrencies for years.
In December 2023, Dimon said A US Senate committee has said it would shut down crypto if it were in government, further claiming it was “deeply opposed” to the asset class.
Held in court in Davos a month later, Dimon compared BTC to a “pet”. When asked about the involvement of investment titans like Fidelity and BlackRock in Bitcoin via spot ETFs, Dimon astutely stated that he “doesn’t care.”
While Dimon may not care about spot ETFs, JPMorgan is notably playing an important role in BlackRock’s IBIT as one of the authorized participants of the fund. This means that JPMorgan helps ensure that ETF prices are accurate and trading runs smoothly in all market conditions.
He recently doubled down on his long-standing skepticism of Bitcoin, labeling the first crypto “a fraud” and a “Ponzi scheme”.