In a major development, top financial institution JPMorgan plans to begin offering loans to clients, with crypto ETFs serving as the collateral. The bank plans to start with the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF, IBIT, for this offering.
According to a Bloomberg report, the firm will start providing financing against crypto exchange-traded funds, starting with BlackRock’s Bitcoin ETF in the coming weeks. This marks traditional finance’s (TradFi) latest adoption of cryptocurrencies as the Trump administration continues to remove all regulatory hurdles.
The report also revealed that JPMorgan will begin taking wealth-management clients’ crypto holdings into account when assessing their overall net worth and liquid assets. This means that Bitcoin and other crypto assets could enjoy the same treatment as other assets, such as real estate, stocks, and precious metals, when calculating how much a client can borrow against their assets.
It is worth mentioning that this development follows the recent Moscow Exchange’s launch of Bitcoin futures linked to the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF, with the exchange offering limited access to accredited investors.
The IBIT ETF has enjoyed much interest from institutional investors since launching last year. SoSoValue data shows that the fund currently boasts $70.16 billion in net assets. The fund went on a 31-day inflow streak, which just ended on May 30.
Thanks to this massive interest, Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas predicts that the Bitcoin ETF’s holdings will surpass Satoshi Nakamoto’s 1.12 million BTC stash by next year.
In an X post, Balchunas revealed the top 25 biggest ETFs, which included the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF. The BTC ETF currently ranks at number 23 and is the youngest by nine times. Balchunas remarked that this is possibly the most insane IBIt stat yet, despite there being many of them.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan’s latest proposed offering comes despite the CEO Jamie Dimon’s skepticism about Bitcoin as an asset class. Jamie Dimon recently called on the US to stockpile bullets and rare earth instead of BTC.
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