JPMorgan Chase & Co. Now Accepts Bitcoin and Ethereum as Loan Collateral in Landmark Banking Move

Wall Street giant embraces crypto assets for secured lending

JPMorgan Chase just rewrote the banking rulebook—the institution that once called Bitcoin a fraud now lets clients pledge their digital gold as collateral for traditional loans.

Bitcoin and Ethereum Get Banking Stamp of Approval

The move signals institutional acceptance reaching critical mass. No more selling your crypto to access liquidity—just lock it up and borrow against it like any other asset class.

Traditional collateral gets digital competition as banks finally acknowledge what crypto natives knew all along: blockchain assets have real-world value beyond speculation.

Who needs physical gold when you can collateralize with digital assets that never tarnish? The old guard adapts or gets left behind—and JPMorgan clearly chose adaptation.

Implementation details and framework

According to Bloomberg, institutional clients will be able to pledge their Bitcoin or Ethereum holdings to JPMorgan no later than the end of 2025. The collateral will be held by an external custodian to mitigate regulatory and operational risk. The bank is building on its previous practice of accepting spot Bitcoin ETFs – such as IBIT (BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust) – as collateral.

Furthermore, JPMorgan is expected to start including crypto holdings not only as collateral but also as part of clients’ overall asset valuations – similar to stocks, real estate, or luxury goods.

Strategic significance and market impact

The announcement shows that one of the largest U.S. banks no longer views cryptocurrencies as purely speculative assets but as legitimate financial instruments. For institutional investors, this means that capital constraints can now be bridged by pledging crypto holdings without having to liquidate them. At the same time, the MOVE signals growing willingness among major financial institutions to integrate crypto assets into their operations and lending businesses.

JPMorgan currently manages over 3.8 trillion USD in assets, making it the largest bank in the United States. The new program allowing bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) to be used as loan collateral will be implemented through JPMorgan’s existing Onyx blockchain infrastructure, which is already used for interbank transactions. The crypto custody solution will be provided by Fidelity Digital Assets and Anchorage Digital, acting as independent third-party custodians securing the pledged coins. According to Bloomberg, the pilot project began in September 2025 with a test volume of approximately 250 million USD, with official rollout scheduled for the first quarter of 2026. The framework is based on the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) guidelines updated in 2025, which for the first time explicitly permit digital assets to serve as collateralized loan instruments.