© Mike Segar / Reuters
The bank is gauging client demand and the potential risks of facilitating their trades, an unnamed person told Bloomberg, asking not to be identified.
CME is expected to offer bitcoin futures by the end of this year, allowing investors to bet on the future price of the digital currency. The Chicago Board Options Exchange (Cboe) is also preparing a bitcoin futures market.
JPMorgan allows clients some access to bitcoin through an exchange-traded note, which involves routing their orders to exchanges. Handling client trades of futures contracts is conceptually similar but could still pose some risks, according to the source.
The bank's surprising announcement comes as its Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon has been one of bitcoin's most prominent detractors on Wall Street. He called the digital currency a "fraud," useful only for criminals and murderers. Dimon has also warned to fire employees of the bank trading bitcoin for being stupid. The CEO has said several times that bitcoin is a bubble that will crash.
Despite the criticism from Dimon, the company's finance chief Marianne Lake said last month the firm is "open-minded" to the potential uses for digital currencies so long as they are appropriately regulated.
Bitcoin is up more than 800 percent this year, breaking the $8,000 level for the first time this weekend. The cryptocurrency was trading at $8,269 at 1:00pm GMT on Wednesday.
'Time to accept that virtual currencies are here to stay'
Cryptocurrencies have now become a part of everyday life, and the worst thing we could do is to prohibit or ignore them, said Herman Gref the head of Russia's largest lender Sberbank.
"Virtual currencies are a natural outcome of blockchain technology. We may ban them, we may welcome them. It is trendy to urge people not to play with them. But they are a fact of our life," Gref said at a meeting of the Russian entrepreneurs association.
According to Gref, people have accepted the existence of digital currencies, like bitcoin and ethereum.
"Protectionism is just the first reaction of the state. However, both the institution of private money and the states, which will dare to change the way currency is issued, will eventually find a place for cryptocurrencies in the economy," the Sberbank CEO said.
Gref said it would take time to realize that virtual money is here to stay, and advised not to ban it. The banker added that blockchain is a gigantic opportunity for businesses, including small enterprises.
Russian officials are split over the cryptocurrency issue with the country's finance ministry limiting trading of bitcoin for ordinary people, calling it a "pyramid scheme." The Moscow Exchange started developing a mechanism that would allow trading both cryptocurrencies themselves and their derivatives for "qualified investors."
The Central Bank of Russia called for stricter regulation as its chief, Elvira Nabiulina, once described digital currencies as "financial pyramids." She also warned of cryptocurrencies' anonymous nature that allows them to be used for illegal activity and terrorism.
Aleksey Kudrin, the head of the Russia's Center for Strategic Research (CSR) and former finance minister, compared cryptocurrency trade to a casino, where you can both win or lose.
Reader Comments
to our Newsletter