JP Morgan Will Get Involved With Bitcoin if There’s Enough Demand, Says COO

Daniel Pinto, co-president and COO of multinational investment bank JP Morgan, confirmed to CNBC that if Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies become widespread, the bank will have no choice but to get involved with them.

“If and when [cryptocurrencies] become a broadly-used asset class, [JP Morgan] will have no choice but to become involved. The demand from clients isn’t there yet, but I’m sure it will be at some point,” Pinto told CNBC’s Hugh Son.

The correspondent explained that big banks have been very reluctant so far to get involved with Bitcoin because it is considered too speculative. However, JP Morgan’s own traders have been looking at Bitcoin charts and “truly salivating at the volatility and the surge of this” lately, which became evident at the recent semi-annual “town hall” meeting at the bank.

Son also noted that while he has been asking JP Morgan about Bitcoin on a regular basis, he was “really surprised this year by the difference in tone.” When specifically asked about regulation, Pinto reportedly said that JP Morgan’s counterparties are big institutions that are already cleared in terms of know-your-customer procedures.

Additionally, Pinto said that when JP Morgan will finally decide to get into Bitcoin, it will use crypto exchanges the bank is “comfortable with,” specifically namedropping Coinbase.

As Decrypt reported, JP Morgan is actually already exposed to Bitcoin—albeit somewhat indirectly—by being one of Tesla’s shareholders, which recently revealed its $1.5 billion investment in Bitcoin.