31st July 2025 > > JPM, Coinbase, & the U.S. Government.

tl;dr

JPM executes a massive U-turn. The White House crypto report was not nearly as exciting as it might have been.

Market Snap 

Market Wrap

Comments from Jerome Powell that indicated a diminished possibility that the Fed will manipulate interest rates downwards next month caused an initial sell-off to $116k, a level that seems to be very hard to meaningfully breach to the downside. By the same token, an attempt to rally past $119k proved short-lived, leaving us firmly ensconced in a very narrow trading range.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – J.P. Morgan (JPM)

This is news that proves the crypto pivot is well and truly underway, in the US at least.

JPM and Coinbase have jointly announced that from this autumn they are rolling out the functionality to directly link customer bank accounts and those customers’ Coinbase accounts. This is an about-turn from JPM on an epic scale, which gives Coinbase direct access to JPM’s 80 million retail customers. Coinbase is one of the very few pure crypto plays available to stock investors and forms a key component of the CC Treasury portfolio.

One of my personal banks gets very uppity with any transfer to Coinbase over a few thousand quid. To be fair, that is more of a reflection upon the UK’s overarching political hostility to cryptos. By chance, it is also the bank that garnered a lot of bad press for adopting a wokeish attitude towards some clients, and hence is keen as mustard to find any excuse to try to slow the crypto revolution.

One day, in the distant future, the UK politicians and the regulators will see the error of their ways, and will belatedly allow us to freely join the crypto party.

Curious Cryptos’ Commentary – White House crypto report

Yesterday the US government released a report entitled “Strengthening American Leadership in Digital Financial Technology”:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Digital-Assets-Report-EO14178.pdf

At a weighty 166 pages, much of its focus is on the regulatory landscape around cryptos, none of which is particularly new, or surprising. Many of the recommendations will be addressed with the recent adoption of the GENIUS ACT, and the expected adoption of the CLARITY act, plus other legislative initiatives.

There is a very welcome public disavowal of CBDCs, which is worth repeating here:

“Discourage, oppose, and prohibit the ability of any agency from undertaking any action to establish, issue, or promote any CBDCs in the United States or abroad.”

Quite right too. Even hard-core critics of the US, of which there are many, must applaud this stance on this most hoary of topics that gets to the heart of our need for privacy, freedom, and liberty.

There is a section on tax, which is the only subject most politicians have any interest in.

The biggest disappointment is the lack of any detail of the U.S. BTC Strategic Reserve. The very last page, “Cementing U.S. Leadership through the Bitcoin Strategic Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile”, references the earlier creation of the reserve which is being funded by cryptos seized by law enforcement agencies, and concludes with this forward guidance:

“Pursuant to Section 3(e) of Executive Order No. 14233, Treasury delivered considerations to the White House regarding the establishment and management of the Reserve and the Stockpile. Treasury will continue to coordinate with the White House and other members of the Working Group to move forward with appropriate next steps to operationalize the Reserve and the Stockpile for the benefit of the United States government and taxpayers.”

Senator Cynthia Lummis, one of our heroines, has proposed legislation specific to the Reserve, titled Boosting Innovation, Technology, and Competitiveness through Optimized Investment Nationwide (BITCOIN) Act, but that is likely a long time away from crossing Trump’s desk for his signature. In the meantime, perhaps the appetite for using taxpayers’ dollars to buy BTC is somewhat muted.