The world’s largest asset manager, BlackRock has chosen its authorized participant for its spot Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) and it is JPMorgan.
This comes after Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, said in a congressional hearing that crypto and bitcoin are used for criminal purposes primarily and that he would ban crypto if he were the government.
BlackRock’s filing
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had given applicants of spot-Bitcoin ETFs until Friday to submit an updated filing.
The securities regulator had stated that the amended filings need to include the names of authorized participants (APs) for the application to be considered for approval in January.
The amended filing submitted by BlackRock showed that it has chosen Jane Street and JPMorgan as its authorized participants.
However, in a recent Senate hearing, the chief executive of JPMorgan, Jamie Dimon did not have anything positive to say about crypto or Bitcoin in response to a question from Senator Elizabeth Warren.
He had said that if he was the government, he would shut crypto down because it is mostly used for criminal purposes.
After JPMorgan was revealed as BlackRock’s authorized participant, the crypto community immediately picked up on the statement.
The reaction
Gabor Gurbacs, the director of digital asset strategy at Vaneck, commented on BlackRock and JPMorgan’s agreement despite Dimon’s negative stance toward crypto.
He said that 3 weeks after the CEO had said crypto was for drug traffickers, criminals and money launderers, his company had partnered with BlackRock for a spot Bitcoin ETF.
He added that this showed it was time for them to retract their statement. Similar sentiments were echoed by many people on social media.
As it turns out, JPMorgan will not only serve as the authorized participant for BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF but also for Invesco’s product.
Users criticized Dimon, saying that he would now accelerate crypto adoption and lift the value of Bitcoin and crypto to trillions, even though he has always been opposed to it.
More details
The amended filing from Invesco/Galaxy also showed that they had chosen to partner with JPMorgan for their spot bitcoin ETF.
Other than BlackRock, some other applicants had also submitted amended filings with the SEC.
These companies include Valkyrie, Bitwise, Vaneck, Wisdomtree, Fidelity, and the joint endeavor of 21shares and Ark Investment.
Their aim is to be considered for the initial wave of decisions on spot Bitcoin ETF, with a deadline of January 10th.
Even though many are bullish about the spot Bitcoin ETF boosting the price of Bitcoin, the analysts at JPMorgan are skeptical.
In a note in November, these analysts said that the approval of spot Bitcoin ETFs could put downward pressure on the price of Bitcoin.
Meanwhile, last week, BlackRock disclosed in a filing that it was planning on seeding its spot Bitcoin ETF on January 3rd with an amount of $10 million.