Pick a side: JPMorgan opens leveraged Bitcoin access to retail while closing crypto CEO’s account

Market chop aside, Wall Street is rolling out Bitcoin (BTC) exposure to advisors through structured notes and ETF-collateralized lending.

The bank simultaneously faces debanking blowback after Strike CEO Jack Mallers said his personal Chase accounts were shut. The juxtaposition spotlights institutionalization for clients versus risk-control for crypto-native principals.

On one side, JPMorgan moves BTC exposure into familiar wrappers, such as structured notes tied to spot-ETF performance, and lets select clients pledge Bitcoin-ETF shares as loan collateral.

On the other hand, Strike’s Jack Mallers says JPMorgan closed his personal accounts without explanation.

Together, they show the split-screen of crypto’s mainstreaming: products for wealth platforms, scrutiny for industry figures.

The asymmetry isn’t subtle. JPMorgan filed with the SEC for a leveraged structured note referencing BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT), offering investors 1.5x IBIT’s gains if they hold to 2028.

The $1,000 note includes an early call: if IBIT trades at or above a preset level by December 2026, the bank pays out at least $160 per note, a minimum 16% return over roughly one year.

Miss that trigger and the note runs to maturity, delivering what JPM describes as “uncapped” upside as long as Bitcoin rallies. The downside buffer ends abruptly, as a roughly 40% drop from the initial IBIT level wipes out most of the principal, with losses beyond that threshold tracking the ETF’s decline.

This is not principal-protected. It’s classic structured-product math: limited cushion, leveraged gains, and the real possibility of large losses if Bitcoin sells off into 2028.

The product sits at the “filed with the SEC” stage, with no public disclosure yet on distribution channels or volume expectations. Structured notes of this design typically flow through broker-dealer and private-bank channels to advised or accredited clients, not walk-in retail.

JPMorgan tests a BTC-linked payoff within the same wrapper that high-net-worth clients already see for equities and indexes, but availability and sizing remain unknown.

The collateral play expands the playbook

Bloomberg reported that JPMorgan plans to let institutional clients use Bitcoin and Ethereum holdings as collateral for loans by year-end, using a third-party custodian and offering the program globally.

The move likely builds on an earlier step of accepting crypto-linked ETFs as loan collateral.

JPM has already been accepting crypto-linked ETFs as collateral and is now moving to accept spot Bitcoin ETFs, such as IBIT, for secured financing.

In parallel, it stands up a program for institutional clients to borrow against direct BTC and ETH positions held with an external custodian.

Public reporting does not list the full ETF roster or haircut schedule. Still, the examples given are mainstream US spot BTC ETFs, with the program described as global and initially aimed at institutional and wealth clients rather than the mass market.

Scale and distribution details remain sparse. The signals available point to “selected institutional and wealth clients” and “building on a pilot of ETF-backed loans” rather than broad availability across every advisor on the platform.

ETF-collateral lending would naturally sit in the private bank, wealth management, and trading client stack rather than in basic branch banking.

Public reporting gives no hard numbers on volumes or explicit advisor channels yet.

The closure that breaks the pattern

Jack Mallers wrote that “J.P. Morgan Chase threw me out of the bank” last month. His father has been a private client for more than 30 years.

Every time Mallers asked why, the staff told him, “We aren’t allowed to tell you.” He posted an image of what he says is the Chase letter. That letter cites “concerning activity” identified during routine monitoring, references the Bank Secrecy Act, and says the bank commits to “regulatory compliance and the safety and integrity of the financial system.”

It also warns that the bank may not open new accounts for him in the future. Mallers’ personal banking has moved to Strike.

There is no detailed on-the-record explanation from JPMorgan of the specific trigger for Mallers’ account closure.

Coverage notes that a spokesperson either declined to comment or stressed generally that the bank must comply with federal law, including the Bank Secrecy Act, when reviewing customer accounts.

JPMorgan declined to provide details on the rationale, citing Bank Secrecy Act obligations.

The timing is excellent. On Aug. 7, President Donald Trump signed the “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans” executive order, framed squarely at “politicized debanking.”

Legal analyses describe it as directing regulators to identify and penalize banks that deny or terminate services to customers based on their political or religious views or industry affiliations.

Following the order, the OCC issued guidance in September telling large banks not to “debank” customers over politics or religion and to limit unnecessary sharing of customer data in suspicious-activity reports.

However, the guidance concerns how banks weigh reputational risk and fair access; it does not relax their duty to monitor accounts and report suspicious activity under the Bank Secrecy Act.

The compliance track runs separately

On one track, a friendlier White House and Congress try to stop banks from blocklisting whole categories, such as crypto, on “reputational” grounds. On the other track, nothing in the executive order or OCC bulletins rewrites BSA/AML statutes.

When JPMorgan invokes “concerning activity” found during BSA surveillance, it leans on obligations that predate the Trump order and remain fully in force.

Regulators pushed banks to crack down on politically motivated account closures and to remove “reputational risk” from safety-and-soundness assessments. However, banks still file suspicious-activity reports and manage money-laundering risk.

The split shows how institutionalization proceeds on two planes. Product teams wire Bitcoin exposure into structures that wealth advisors already understand, such as notes with call features, loans backed by ETF shares.

Meanwhile, compliance teams keep running the same KYC and transaction-monitoring playbooks they ran before the election.

The executive order changes rhetoric, not the underlying BSA framework. Banks can no longer cite “crypto is too risky” as a blanket reason to exit relationships, but they retain full authority to close accounts when transaction patterns trip internal controls.

What’s at stake is whether banks treat crypto-industry principals differently from crypto-owning clients.
A wealth-management customer who buys IBIT through a managed account gets access to structured notes and collateralized lending.

A CEO who built a Bitcoin payments company gets a form letter citing “concerning activity” with no further explanation. The products roll out, and the principals get cut off.

JPMorgan tests whether it can serve one without accommodating the other, betting that Washington’s fair-banking push will not override BSA-driven closures and that clients will keep buying exposure even as the bank distances itself from the industry’s executives.

The bank decides the line between acceptable and unacceptable crypto participation, and so far, that line runs between holding the asset and building the infrastructure.

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