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JPMorgan co-president and COO Daniel Pinto has said that the banking giant will support bitcoin trading if there is client demand for it.

“If over time an asset class develops that is going to be used by different asset managers and investors, we will have to be involved,” Pinto told CNBC in an interview published Friday. “The demand isn’t there yet, but I’m sure it will be at some point.”

Last month, JPMorgan reportedly held a meeting with thousands of traders and sales staff around the world, and the company was asked when it will get involved with bitcoin, and Pinto reportedly struck an optimistic tone. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has previously spoken skeptically of bitcoin, calling it a “fraud.”

According to Pinto, bitcoin is gaining wider acceptance. He cited BlackRock’s recent move of adding bitcoin futures as an eligible investment in two of its funds as proof of broader adoption.

Pinto further said that if bitcoin gets regulated, JPMorgan traders would involve vetted clients and reputable exchanges, including Coinbase.

Traditional financial institutions and corporates are warming up to bitcoin at a faster pace. Yesterday, America’s oldest bank, BNY Mellon, said it plans to custody bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies later this year. JPMorgan and Citi are also exploring crypto custody services, as The Block has previously reported.

Such positive developments have shot the bitcoin price up in recent weeks. It is currently trading at around $47,700, according to TradingView.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Swarm Association, the team behind the development of an Ethereum-based decentralized storage network, has raised $6 million in a private token sale. 

The sale saw Swarm’s native BZZ tokens get distributed to venture firms, including HashKey Capital, NGC Ventures, and KR1. Bitcoin Suisse facilitated the sale.

With fresh capital at hand, Swarm looks to launch its mainnet in Q2 of this year that has been under development for the last four years. Swarm’s network is expected to serve as the serverless internet’s operating system that hosts and runs decentralized applications.

Near the mainnet release, Swarm also plans to hold a public token sale, details of which will be shared when it is confirmed, said the association.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Compute North, the U.S.-based bitcoin mining infrastructure provider, has raised $25 million to expand operations.

The new funding is in the form of both equity and debt, at $10 million and $15 million, respectively, Compute North CEO Dave Perrill told The Block.

The debt capital is a secured loan from Post Road Group, a privately held, U.S.-based investment group. The equity round came from family offices, strategic partners, and industry leaders, said Compute North.

With fresh capital at hand, the firm looks to expand its operations and team. “Projects are already underway for expansion at our current facilities, with more details coming in the next week, as well as new facility development,” Perrill told The Block.

With the upcoming development, Compute North expects to nearly double its capacity from over 920 Peta hashes per second (PH/s) to about 1,840 PH/s.

This is the first external funding round of Compute North, Perrill told The Block. The firm was privately funded to date.

© 2021 The Block Crypto, Inc. All Rights Reserved. This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.

Quick Take

• In January 2019, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) started releasing a yearly central bank digital currency (CBDC) paper based on results from its global survey of central banks.
• Each paper offers insights regarding monetary authorities’ current thoughts and future plans for digital assets.
• In this piece, The Block Research dissects the findings of the third annual BIS survey on CBDC, while also using the previous two reports as support.

This research piece is available to
members of The Block Genesis.
You can continue reading
this Genesis research on The Block.