Wall Street investment banking company, JPMorgan Chase is set to roll-out debt instruments that are connected to 11 cryptocurrency-focused companies. In the latest development, the financial services behemoth has reportedly filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] about a new debt instrument to enable its investor clients to gain exposure to the cryptocurrency market in the form of public-company stocks involved with digital assets.
The latest stint happens to be JPMorgan’s first-ever material mention of Bitcoin. This comes as a surprise welcome as Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the bank has not been a fan of Bitcoin and had also called the crypto-asset a “fraud”.
The prosepectus read,
“The notes are designed for investors who seek exposure to the performance of the J.P. Morgan Cryptocurrency Exposure Basket (Mar 2021) of 11 unequally weighted Reference Stocks, which we refer to as the Basket, as reduced by the Basket Deduction of 1.50%. Notwithstanding the name of the Basket, the notes do not provide direct exposure to cryptocurrencies and the performance of the Basket may not be correlated with the price of any particular cryptocurrency, such as bitcoin.”
According to the documentation details on the official edict, JPMorgan’s Cryptocurrency Exposure Basket (Mar 2021) is described as an “unequally weighted basket consisting of 11 Reference Stocks of U.S.-listed companies” that operate businesses directly and indirectly related to cryptocurrencies
JPMorgan’s Crypto Exposure Basket Also Features MicroStrategy, PayPal among others
The upcoming debt instrument was a major development in the cryptocurrency space. Perfectly timed with the market-wide bullish reversal, JPMorgan’s news suggests that sentiment of the previously skeptic Wall Street biggies as cryptocurrency quietly appeared atop the chart surpassing stocks to bonds, oil, banks, gold, and tech stocks.
Also, it was the inclusion of some of the big names in the industry that was interesting. JPMorgan’s “basket” of companies include enterprise software and Bitcoin holder, MicroStrategy, payments companies including PayPal.
Other companies also include Jack Dorsey-led Square, Riot Blockchain, NVIDIA, AMD, semiconductor giant TSMC, Intercontinental Exchange, CME Group, Overstock and Silvergate. This “basket” is tasked with developing support for cryptocurrency into its app.