{"id":38241,"date":"2025-07-22T20:31:47","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:31:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=38241"},"modified":"2025-07-22T20:31:47","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T20:31:47","slug":"the-node-jpms-btc-lending-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/?p=38241","title":{"rendered":"The Node: JPM\u2019s BTC Lending Play"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>The Financial Times <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/markets\/2025\/07\/22\/jpmorgan-plans-to-launch-crypto-backed-loans-report\">reports<\/a> that JPMorgan, the world\u2019s biggest bank, is looking into issuing crypto-backed loans, meaning that its clients may soon be able to pledge bitcoin, ether, or some other token to borrow dollars.<\/p>\n<p>The news is notable for a couple of reasons. Crypto folks love pointing out that Jamie Dimon, the bank\u2019s chief executive, famously said in 2017 that he\u2019d fire any employee caught trading bitcoin for being \u201cstupid,\u201d so JPMorgan considering the issuance of such a product (and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/07\/15\/jamie-dimon-says-jpmorgan-to-get-more-involved-with-stablecoins\">getting involved with stablecoins<\/a>) is seen as vindication by some in the industry.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>This is an excerpt from The Node newsletter, a daily roundup of the most pivotal crypto news on CoinDesk and beyond. You can subscribe to get the full<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/newsletters\/\">newsletter here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>More interesting is what JPMorgan\u2019s move could end up meaning for crypto lending. The Bank of Dimon isn\u2019t the first TradFi firm to look into crypto-backed loans (Cantor Fitzgerald <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2024\/11\/25\/tether-in-talks-to-support-cantor-fitzgerald-s-planned-bitcoin-lending-program-wsj\">announced<\/a> a similar program last July) but it\u2019s certainly the largest.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of 2024, the crypto lending market <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/markets\/2025\/04\/15\/tether-galaxy-ledn-dominate-cefi-crypto-lending-as-defi-borrowing-soars-report\">stood<\/a> at $36.5 billion, down 43% from its $64.4 billion peak at the height of the 2021 bull run. The lending sector was dominated by Tether, followed by Galaxy Digital and Ledn. Together, the three firms accounted for 90% of $11.2 billion outstanding loans (excluding DeFi, which saw $19.1 billion in borrowings across 20 applications and 12 blockchains).<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m sure these numbers need updating, considering how many crypto native firms have announced their entry into the market since then \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/01\/16\/coinbase-to-offer-bitcoin-backed-loans-through-morpho\">Coinbase<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/05\/07\/bitcoin-payments-app-strike-to-offer-btc-lending-in-boost-to-reemergent-sector\">Strike<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/03\/18\/crypto-wealth-manager-xapo-bank-introduces-bitcoin-backed-loans-up-to-usd1m\">Xapo Bank<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/technical\/lava-loans-protocol-v2-dlc-based-bitcoin-collateralized-loans\">Lava<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/02\/20\/onramp-and-arch-launch-bitcoin-backed-lending-service\">Onramp and Arch<\/a>, and even real-estate focused <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/business\/2025\/01\/24\/real-estate-firm-propy-is-rolling-out-crypto-backed-loans-to-buy-houses\">Propy<\/a>, to name a few.<\/p>\n<p>The growth of the sector is great for consumers because <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/markets\/2025\/04\/09\/bitcoin-backed-loans-are-going-to-get-way-cheaper-around-the-globe-ledn-co-founder\">it will force interest rates<\/a> on crypto-backed loans to drop significantly, Mauricio Di Bartolomeo, co-founder of bitcoin lender Ledn, told CoinDesk in an interview back in April.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a seller\u2019s market right now,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are lending out dollars fully collateralized at north of 12.5%, with zero losses over seven years. Banks are going to look at this and say \u2018Wow, this is a great rate of return.\u2019 One bank will come in with 12% interest. Another will do 10%. Another says 9%. So this is going to compress, and compress.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Down the line, such loans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coindesk.com\/coindesk-indices\/2025\/02\/19\/the-opportunity-in-high-yield-crypto-backed-loans\">could become competitive with home equity or personal lines of credit<\/a>, Di Bartolomeo said. Even better, rates wouldn\u2019t simply drop in Western countries with efficient banking systems, but all over the globe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGold in a vault in Switzerland is not gold in a vault in Venezuela, but bitcoin in Colombia is bitcoin in Madrid is bitcoin anywhere in the world. As an underwriter, I have uniform collateral,\u201d Di Bartolomeo said.<\/p>\n<p>JPMorgan\u2019s foray into the sector takes us one step closer towards fulfilling that vision.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Financial Times reports that JPMorgan, the world\u2019s biggest bank, is looking into issuing crypto-backed loans, meaning that its clients may soon be able to pledge bitcoin, ether, or some other token to borrow dollars. The news is notable for a couple of reasons. Crypto folks love pointing out that Jamie Dimon, the bank\u2019s chief [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3,4,5],"class_list":["post-38241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-crypto","tag-doge","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dogewisperer.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}