In September 2017, J.P. Morgan Chase’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, was still publicly stating the opinion that Bitcoin is a fraud. He might have been afraid of the growing bubble, which was supposed to blow back then, or at least that’s what the people thought who paid for their media. Dimon had fuel for this comment as Bitcoin previously went below $3000, which many technical analysts now think is the bottom of the bottoms if it was to descend that low. We are still fighting our way out of the bear trend for now, but it seems someone is consistently buying the dip.

So wouldn’t the famous “smart money” start investing now before the next bull run? Apparently, Dimon’s comment represented only the CEO’s own opinion of Bitcoin and cryptos because in February JPM published a report for their clients stating “around here could be a good time to invest”. See the report here. JPM’s report is a surprising outcome since the average age of the bank’s clients is around 50. You’d think that it’s younger people who are more interested in crypto markets than elder. Statements by Warren Buffett, for instance, represent the classic view of the elder. But the old pals have a hunch for the money and there’s recently been an interesting turn of events.

How to Make a Bank

Lets begin with European Central Bank CEO, Mario Draghi’s, statement in February, in which he states that the European banks “could hold” (read: are buying at the moment to sell later to their clients) Bitcoin if, for example, some American exchanges listed BTC futures. According to the latest information, the biggish Nasdaq is pondering whether BTC futures are feasible to be listed. Futures don’t involve the trading of actual Bitcoins, but instead allow investors to speculate on its future price. Despite that, the anticipation of CME listing BTC futures gave a good boost to Bitcoins visibility (then also to the price and vice versa) at the time. I don’t know what Nasdaq’s green light and listing could do then, maybe at least Mario would like it.

Similar rumors are spreading around the more youthful bank, Goldman Sachs, whose clients average age is below 40. In the cryptoscene, the wildly famous Palm Beach Confidential, and its front man Teeka Tiwari, argues in a video to its clients that he has been in a Silicon Valley and Wall Street elite party where a wild rumor about the bank’s plans was spreading. A later letter by PBC’s Greg Wilson stated the same thing. According to PBC, Goldman Sachs is opening a trading desk for investors and institutions around April. PBC has a track record of knowing their shit. And now it doesn’t seem like a coincidence anymore that Circle, backed by Goldman Sachs, acquired Poloniex. The rumor promises quite a ride for the whole crypto market but quoting Ethereum’s main guy Vitalik Buterin, “has crypto even earned its market capitalization at the moment?” The HODL meme lives strong among the people since everyone wants a piece of the growth, but why would there be any ahead?

Who Will Lead the Market?

The question is, who will lead the growth. With the exception of the great altcoin’s bull run at the end of 2017, it seems that everything mainly follows the movements of Bitcoin. Bitcoin wrestles against Ether for its number one place in the market cap when the Bitcoin Core can’t always dismiss their egos and make the necessary updates which would take BTC and its technology forward. In the grand scheme of things, lightning network might actually get real traction in the coming months, which could return Bitcoin to being a usable means of payment. That, then, would be promising for some growth if one is to believe Metcalfe’s law, which states that the value of a network is proportional to the amount of transactions in the network. Surprisingly, the main price pumps on Ether also followed this law.

From history, we know that afterwards, everything seems so obvious, as if every crucial piece of information was already there but it just hadn’t yet taken form to become the existing reality. In my point of view, so many tokens and coins have such ambitious goals to be part of the future’s digital society that if they become even partly achieved, we’ll see notable growth in prices. I believe that many who haven’t yet read up on cryptos are interested in this new decentralized way of owning. The technology has already proved itself interesting and exciting among the bigger crowd and has no match in what has been seen before in the history of different markets. This might really become the greatest financial bubble you’ll see during your lifetime.

Check out JPM’s report (link expires on 9th of April) & PBC’s letter.

psst! The banks. It has begun.