
JPMorgan Extends Banking Services to Bitcoin Exchanges - Reedx
https://www.wsj.com/articles/jpmorgan-extends-banking-services-to-bitcoin-exchanges-11589281201
======
rootsudo
Meanwhile, no ones talking before how JPMOrgan Chase said crypto was fake, not
money, would close accounts of people using it to wire money to Coinbase?

[https://www.ccn.com/crypto-startup-jp-morgan-chase-closed-
ou...](https://www.ccn.com/crypto-startup-jp-morgan-chase-closed-our-account-
with-no-explanation/)

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/02/jpmorgan-chase-bank-of-
ameri...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/02/jpmorgan-chase-bank-of-america-bar-
bitcoin-buys-with-a-credit-card.html)

[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/13/bitcoin-f...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/sep/13/bitcoin-
fraud-jp-morgan-cryptocurrency-drug-dealers)

And countless more if you modify your Google search w/ anything previous to
12/31/19.

~~~
jcims
What's your point? JPMC isn't trading bitcoin, they are offering banking
services to crypto exchanges. As long as the latter can demonstrate they are
operating with appropriate regulations and risk management, it's just like
providing banking services to any other company.

~~~
rootsudo
Whose to say they won't 180 their decision and all known bitcoin accounts and
affiliated companies are removed from their banking services, amounts seized,
etc

Plus the whole message of centralization vs decentralized of crypto.

But yeah, "appropriate regulations and risk management" for whom, YOU the
customer, or THEM the Bank?

JP Morgan is not your friend if you deal in Crypto. The market tide is
swinging that they have to play to compete but they are overall 100% hostile.

Same as HSBC.

~~~
koheripbal
They usually do this when they suspect there's money laundering going on,
usually due to drug dealing. which, you know, DOES happen on Bitcoin
exchanges.

~~~
npongratz
Of course. And it happens on an even larger scale in the legacy fiat banking
system [0], but when caught, "offenders" continue conducting business as usual
after they pay a small tribute.

[0] One of many examples: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-probe-
idUSBRE8BA05M2...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-hsbc-probe-
idUSBRE8BA05M20121212)

~~~
techntoke
They aid criminals knowingly, and just get a slap on the wrist when they get
caught:

[https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/17/deutsche-
ba...](https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/apr/17/deutsche-bank-faces-
action-over-20bn-russian-money-laundering-scheme)

------
coderintherye
Silvergate Bank deserves a lot of credit here for being an early backer of
crypto. It's really the work of banks like theirs that have dragged the bigger
banks forward.

~~~
tsukurimashou
why would we need banks to back crypto? isn't the point of bitcoin to not have
to rely on banks?

~~~
qubex
That’s the entry point from whence you divine that ‘crypto’ has failed at
becoming a payment system (as it was originally envisioned to be) and has
instead become a mere asset class for speculation.

~~~
woah
Huh? How would any envisioned use of Bitcoin work without the ability to trade
it for dollars?

~~~
qubex
The cop-out snide answer is “anybody who lives outside the US and doesn’t use
dollars as their main currency”.

The answer that actually addresses the central question, however, would follow
the lines of “if a scrip does not have institutions that use it _natively_
across the board to address all functions of a currency, but rather depends on
gateway institutions, then it isn’t a currency”. (A ‘scrip’ is a kind of
quasi-money token system such as “Disney Dollars” at Disney’s amusement parks,
vouchers used in company towns, and so forth.)

------
bravoetch
This is a big deal for the crypto industry. If you've ever transacted between
your bank and a Bitcoin exchange you may have seen the boutique banks they've
been dealing with labelled on your transactions. It's been hard for these
companies to get a big name-brand bank onboard. This really helps lubricate
the money-go-round.

~~~
qubex
So much for ‘crypto’ becoming an payment system independent of the “fiat
currency”-based fractional reserve financial system all the crypto-goldbugs
rail against on a regular basis.

This just shows that ‘crypto’ has failed at its stated aim of becoming a
payment system and has instead devolved into being an asset class for
speculation — a volatile one at that because it’s totally devoid of
fundamentals.

~~~
strgcmc
Certainly as a payments system, Bitcoin looks to be failing/has-failed/will-
fail. But there is another possible future other than being a fake-internet-
money "asset class for speculation... devoid of fundamentals": a long-term
return to something akin to gold-backed aka bitcoin-backed fiat currency.

Personally, I don't think deeper integration with traditional fiat
currency/banking systems is a sign of failure; rather, it's the first step
towards this possible future (which of course, is highly unlikely still, but
20 years ago it was 0% likely, 10 years ago it was 0.00000000001 likely, and
now, who knows maybe 0.0001 likely?).

Of course, this too, is all speculation. It's hard to predict the future.

------
LatteLazy
I generally welcome this but I feel bad for the boutique banks that were
providing this service: now they've taken all the risk and proved it's
profitable, JPM etc will swoop in and take the business.

~~~
dd36
Why would they switch? JPM isn’t going to prioritize them.

~~~
LatteLazy
JPM will offer them 0.5% lower fees. They can do that because they have lower
fixed costs. If you're an exchange, 0.5% increases your profit margin by 10%.
Hard to say no to that.

------
Mengkudulangsat
This might be due to a rise in use of tracing services such as Chainalysis and
Elliptic. Exchanges want to employ them to comply with AML but on the
development side, the community is actively working to neuter the efficacy of
those services.

Once that happens, banking access might be withdrawn once again.

~~~
ashtonkem
I’ve said it before, Bitcoin is one of the least anonymous currencies ever
devised. A permanent, public transaction log of every trade a wallet has ever
made does not make anonymity easy.

Sure, there are some techniques you can use (mixers, for example), but if any
of your techniques are defeated in the future your entire transaction history
will be unmasked _forever_ , which is bad.

~~~
bavell
True, but if you know what you're doing it's not that hard to reclaim
anonymity with BTC. I'm mostly referring to mixing services here but of course
there's more to it than that. Bit complicated but still not hard.

------
conchy
they permanently closed my checking account for buying bitcoins ... in 2011.
haha jokes on you now JPM!

~~~
buboard
I ran a bitcoin price leaderboard website, and my bank sent me a termination
letter. Will be interesting to see how they react to this

~~~
dependenttypes
Was it connected to your bank account in some way?

~~~
buboard
no! no money exchanges was going through the website. it was my business
account however

~~~
dependenttypes
I am confused. If no money exchange was going through the website then how did
they found out that you were running it?

~~~
buboard
They went through the websites on my portfolio as part of KYC.

~~~
dependenttypes
Really weird that this is even legal.

------
leeoniya
the same 2017 Jamie Dimon that called bitcoin a fraud?

~~~
MisterPea
People's opinions can change. Good on him for not being stubborn about it

~~~
leeoniya
profiteering opportunity sure has a way of doing that

------
Animats
Coinbase and the Winkelvii thing, Gemini, only.

~~~
xorcist
Others could presumably follow.

------
7leafer
anarchy is order

anonymity is transparency

distributed is centralized

Satoshi is JPMorgan

------
patwillson22
Clearly this is a CIA plot. I know people who work in JPMorgan and they have
shown me APIs specifically designed to detect deep web bitcoin purchases.
Let's just say that there's no such thing as privacy anymore.

~~~
TACIXAT
I've long believed that bitcoin started as a CIA black budget program. I know
it's out there, but they are one of the few organizations with the development
skills and opsec skills to put out an anonymous application. The motivation
makes a lot of sense too.

The dubbed successor to Nakamoto visited the CIA. [1] Speculated about in the
article, my theory has always been that it was an interview of sorts.

Anyway, just a conspiracy. Take it with a large grain of salt.

1\. [https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/07/19/satoshi-
nakamoto-...](https://thenextweb.com/hardfork/2019/07/19/satoshi-nakamoto-
left-bitcoin-because-of-the-cia-theory-cryptocurrency/)

~~~
polynomial
Agree that it is an enticing and certainly plausible theory, but it doesn't
seem to line up with the actual events of Gavin visiting the CIA and Satoshi
disappearing right after that, even if you grant them n-dimensional chess plot
mastery, _unless_ Gavin was either a mole all along, or inexplicably turned
into one.

Edit: I won't delete this, as I think it's an interesting discussion, but I
immediately realized they could have just been playing Gavin all along. And
his scene with CSW certainly highlighted his gullibility. Hmmm...

~~~
Melting_Harps
> but it doesn't seem to line up with the actual events of Gavin visiting the
> CIA

Just so it's clear I was deeply hurt with the loss of Gavin in our Community,
and it shows why Power should never be trusted with Humans, given it's
propensity to corrupt--who the hell would call him Chief Scientist of an open-
source project, besides the Foundation?! However well meaning a person may be
or seem.

With that said, I think his visit to the CIA was a co-opt which is why he
teamed up with Hearn (ex-google) to try and make a play for Bitcoin XT/Classic
forks. He had become the face of Bitcoin after Satoshi, and was US based, so
it makes sense the CIA wanted to meet with him.

What was unexpected was Gavin's actions afterwards, Cypherpunks (espeically
the Crypto-Anarchist type that were the norm in Bitcoin back then) aren't
traditionally afraid to go to Prison for thier convictions: as we've seen
since Zimmerman and PgP. Hal was the person that embodied Bitcoin the most,
but given his health it makes sense why he took a backseat to it all and let
the children take the spotlight.

CSW was a farce, giving Gavin an immediate exit from the Community by then;
subsequently, it cost him his entire reputation and his standing.

@NullC: what do you have to say about any of this if you're reading this?

~~~
jron
Gavin's endorsement of CSW really is one of the strangest things in Bitcoin's
history. Barely Sociable's Satoshi reveal touches on it a bit. I also think it
is pretty telling that Greg hasn't publicly commented (that I'm aware of) on
the video despite still refuting CSW nonsense on an extremely regular basis.
As someone with a ton of respect for Greg, I too would love to hear his
thoughts.

~~~
nullc
Hmh? The video is high production value barely disguised nonsense, through and
through. Most of the content is uncritically rehashing the same thoroughly
discredited talking points that Roger Ver has been paying astroturfers to
repost for years (the weird allegations about Theymos, for example).

For click-bait and harassment purposes they stuck some nonsense about Adam
Back at the very end of it-- using arguments that were thoroughly debunked
such as the use of two spaces after periods when they were applied to other
people.

Lots of people in Bitcoin have destroyed or otherwise declined to share any
private communications with Satoshi, myself included. Personally I think lowly
of people who've shared such communications.

I posted crapping on this video within minutes of watching it, two days ago.

As far as Gavin goes-- His (substantially unwithdrawn) endorsement of Wright
just made clear to the public what a lot of other people had known about him
for quite some time. When Gavin's endorsement of Wright came out the shocking
part was less that he'd do something like that, the shocking part was that he
apparently thought he'd get away with it.

~~~
jron
Get away with what though? Do you believe Gavin was a willing dupe using the
CSW narrative to push bigger blocks? Honestly before watching the video it was
something I hadn't even considered. I was certain Gavin was simply naive.
Thanks for taking the time to reply.

~~~
nullc
Wilfully indifferent to the truth because Wright's position matched perfectly
with what he'd been pushing for is a possibility between outright complicit
and completely naive.

Wright was transparently, painfully, fake to every (other) technical expert.
He can't make it 5 minutes talking about Bitcoin without inserting some claim
which is obviously false or outright nonsense. Considering his chosen vocation
(satoshi impersonator) he's been extremely uninformed about Bitcoin's
technical history... worse, he tends to try to employ "bet you didn't know"
'zingers' based on reading some public summary which are just incorrect
(because he misunderood the source or the source was wrong-- wright isn't very
literate in code).

For a person who is technically proficient in Bitcoin to fall for him it isn't
sufficient for them to have just been tricked by him, they also have to be
blind to more red flags than a communist military parade. :)

------
ur-whale
[http://archive.is/Ki4vj](http://archive.is/Ki4vj)

------
kasabali
Bad news for the environment

------
speedgoose
This is bad for the environment.

~~~
hasa
Proof of work really sucks. Bitcoin was poor invention.

------
nimbius
non paywalled:

[https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/evaluate/news/basic...](https://eresearch.fidelity.com/eresearch/evaluate/news/basicNewsStory.jhtml?symbols=JPM&storyid=202005120714DOWJONESDJONLINE000083&sb=1)

Exchanges all adhere to KYC, so this is relatively low risk for established
financial institutions who are already familiar with commonly accepted methods
of money laundering.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_your_customer)

Tinfoiled among us could see the limited incursion of federal oversight into
this venture as a natural progression from the existing system by which
corporations and dynastic elites funnel wealth into traditional Cayman/Geneva
strongboxes which have a tedious habit of being exposed to the press, to a
system of truly untraceable laundering.

Combine this with the 2020 creation of Privacy ICAO Addresses in ADS-B
transponders and it becomes clear that the cloistered elite really do not want
you so much as thinking of them.

~~~
dependenttypes
The elites will always be able to secretly transfer money around with the help
of the government. What they do not want is for average people like you and me
to be able to do the same.

------
mraza007
Banking is highly regulated industry so they had to be careful

------
aSplash0fDerp
Yeah. This does seem to be a quite dated move.

I wonder how long it took them to get into clamshells when they were a thing.

------
runawaybottle
This is fine if you want to sit on some Bitcoin as an investment, like
literally have bitcoin sitting in your Coinbase wallet, but I’m not sure how
great it is for anything else.

You still can’t really buy bitcoin quickly on Coinbase and transfer it to a
online poker site for example (directly, without raising possible issues). Now
add JPMorgan into the mix.

~~~
sdan
Afaik, bitcoin addresses are easily interchangeable, so you can make a unique
one every-time someone transfers it to the poker site.

So how can CB find out if you're using it on poker?

~~~
ketamine__
They have a list of suspicious addreses. If you attempt to transfer to one of
those addresses they immediately close your account.

~~~
monokh
This might be true for a service with a basic setup of providing the same
address for deposits. If they did it the right way, they would provide a
unique address each time. Such a list of addresses is only known to the key
holder unless they were to share it.
[https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawi...](https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0032.mediawiki)

------
exabrial
Please stop legitimizing bitcoin :( This is the biggest waste of energy and a
contributor to global warming.

