JPMorgan Chase will now allow its retail customers to enjoy access to crypto-asset investments. These are retail investors[efn_note]Retail investor, also known as an individual investor and sometimes a ‘small investor’, is a non-professional investor who buys and sells assets, securities, or funds that contain a basket of investment products (Investorpedia). A retail investor either makes investment decisions for his or her own accounts or has investment decisions made for him or her. If you invest through a retail brokerage or other types of investment accounts that you control yourself and keep your eyes open, you have account managers who make investment decisions for you while you go to sleep with your two eyes closed, or you are part of a group of individuals who share investment-decision power, pool their money together, and put an eye on their investments, you are a retail investor (Millionacres)[/efn_note]. A global leader in financial services offering solutions to corporations, governments, and institutions, JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon, once described bitcoin as a fraud.
Available from 19 July 2021, this new retail-investment service is available to all JPMorgan Chase wealth-management clients who request unsolicited crypto trades from the provided crypto funds. Such JPMorgan Chase clients must have requested investment advice or use the Chase trading app.
While it is not clear if the JPMorgan Chase news added any green candle to bitcoin market value, the impact was clear enough three years ago when bitcoin slumped by over 6% after Jamie Dimon, the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of JPMorgan Chase, described bitcoin a fraud.
Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley have not (yet) introduced crypto-investment products for their retail customers. Will JPMorgan’s announcement be the greenlight that other financial advisors and asset managers need to take crypto-asset investment beyond ultra-wealthy clients and institutional investors? Time will tell.
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