JPMorgan begins banking Coinbase and Gemini
JPMorgan Chase began providing banking services to Coinbase and Gemini, linking two major U.S. cryptocurrency exchanges to one of the country's largest banks.
Reports on May 12 said JPMorgan Chase had taken Coinbase and Gemini on as banking customers. The relationship concerned ordinary banking services such as deposits and payments rather than JPMorgan taking a Bitcoin position.
That distinction is important: cryptocurrency exchanges depend on reliable banking rails to move dollars, settle customer transfers and operate within the regulated financial system. A large U.S. bank serving established exchanges therefore reduced one of the practical barriers that had historically separated crypto businesses from mainstream finance.
The move was especially notable given CEO Jamie Dimon's earlier public hostility toward Bitcoin. Institutional treatment of Bitcoin-related businesses was beginning to diverge from the personal opinions senior bankers had expressed only a few years earlier.