JPMorgan’s Gemini, Coinbase play is a crypto industry ‘roadmap,’ analyst says

JPMorgan Chase’s decision to extend banking services to two bitcoin exchanges could pave the way for other cryptocurrency firms to secure their own banking partners, a Capco analyst told Banking Dive. 

The nation’s largest bank approved accounts for Coinbase and Gemini last month, The Wall Street Journal reported this week, and transaction processing is just beginning, sources told the publication. 

“What we are seeing right now with Gemini and Coinbase is a roadmap on how to partner and succeed with the mainstream financial services industry,” Robert Norris, a managing principal at consultancy firm Capco, told Banking Dive. 

It’s a surprising development for JPMorgan, whose CEO has been known to disparage bitcoin in the past.

During the Delivering Alpha conference in 2017, the bank’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, called bitcoin “a fraud” and said he would fire “in a second” anyone at JPMorgan found to be trading in bitcoin.

“It’s not a real thing,…