27th December 2022 > > JPM and Fidelity.

tl;dr

J.P. Morgan and Fidelity have differing views about the crypto revolution.

Market Snap

Market Wrap

Finally a change in the price of BTC for the first time in a week. And in the right direction too.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary — J.P. Morgan

JPM’s relationship with cryptos is an interesting one.

Jamie Dimon, CEO, is a sceptic, firmly in the Warren Buffett camp. However, analysts at the firm have sometimes taken a different view to Dimon.

But those analysts appear to take a Jim Cramer approach. For those of you unfamiliar with Jim Cramer, he is the host of a daily program on CNBC who gives his personal tips on what to invest in or not. You could describe him as a momentum trader but with an unerring accuracy in going with the flow just before the flow turns making his financial recommendations largely a disaster. A theoretical “anti-Cramer” ETF (exchange traded fund) has been one of the best performing assets for several years now.

Towards the end of last year’s bull run, analysts at JPM moved decisively in support of cryptos.

As we close out 2022 with almost the exact opposite environment, analysts at JPM are now dismissive of cryptos.

Jared Gross, senior analyst at JPM, makes plain his current stance:

“As an asset class, crypto is effectively non-existent for most large institutional investors. The volatility is too high, and the lack of an intrinsic return that you can point to makes it very challenging. Most institutional investors probably are breathing a sigh of relief that they didn’t jump into that market and are probably not going to be doing so anytime soon.”

Perhaps he is unfamiliar with Fidelity.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary — Fidelity

Fidelity has 4.5 TRILLION AUM (assets under management) making it one of the big beasts of the investment world.

Long a supporter of cryptos, the firm recently announced an increase in its headcount for its crypto services of over 100 people, in sharp contrast to the rest of the industry.

Fidelity crops up frequently in these pages for each of its new initiatives related to cryptos.

Now it is expanding into the Metaverse.

Trademark applications by Fidelity indicate plans for an NFT marketplace, and financial services using Web3. It appears that Fidelity is trying to recreate its real-world operation in the virtual world by providing educational resources, financial planning, trading, portfolio management including pension funds, as well as a crypto wallet and crucially crypto custodial services.

Fidelity recently came under fire from three crypto-sceptic senators for allowing pension plan owners to gain exposure to BTC. This was a strange move as a bill passed in May of this year specifically made allowance for 401(k) retirement savings plans to invest in BTC. Senators Durbin, Smith, and Warren lost the legislative argument and so have resorted to using bully-boy tactics to further their own aims of trying to kill the crypto revolution.