Alp Gasimov
2 min read
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JPMorgan Chase’s decision to let clients buy Bitcoin without the bank’s custody marks the end of a strategy that crypto investor Armando Pantoja insists he saw coming for years.
“I didn’t believe Jamie Dimon really believed what he was saying,” Armando said when asked about the bank's recent move. “It was a tactic to keep the average person away from it to keep the prices down.”
According to Armando, banks as a group “were caught off guard with cryptocurrency. They dismissed it from 2009 into 2018.” Institutions, he added, “are like cruise ships — they take a long time to turn around.” While they maneuvered, the best way to accumulate Bitcoin cheaply was to frighten retail investors, he argued.
Armando traced that playbook to a series of hammer blows that struck crypto markets in late 2017 and early 2018 — from Facebook’s ban on crypto ads in early 2018 to Google’s swift follow-up ban, MasterCard and Visa’s refusal to process many crypto-related payments, and the U.S. government’s decision to green-light Bitcoin shorting through derivatives in December 2017.
Those moves, he said, helped drive Bitcoin from nearly $20,000 to about $3,000 in 2018, giving big buyers time to build positions. “All the while, JPMorgan created their own coin,” Armando noted, claiming the bank was “buying Bitcoin behind the scenes” even as Dimon publicly called the asset a “fraud.”
In Armando’s view, the same dynamic resurfaced in 2020–21. After Bitcoin slid again to roughly $3,000 in early 2020, banks resumed public skepticism even as they quietly built out their crypto capabilities.
Armando added that JPMorgan’s network of advisors was told to discourage clients from investing in Bitcoin and cryptocurrency, further suppressing retail demand until the bank had amassed its positions. He said this approach allowed banks “to acquire all of these things at a reasonable price.”
Now, with JPMorgan opening the door to client purchases without custody, Armando believes the bank and its peers have secured the control they wanted. “They would allow people to start purchasing it once they were the controllers and the brokers of cryptocurrency.”
Exclusive: Armando Pantoja alleges JPMorgan manipulated Bitcoin market entry first appeared on TheStreet on May 23, 2025
