In a surprising development for the international holding company, JP Morgan have announced that Bitcoin could be on the verge of turning into a more traditional asset class. Analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou at the financial powerhouse told the Telegraph that the CBOE Global Markets and CME Group proposals to offer Bitcoin futures…

 … has the potential to elevate cryptocurrencies to an emerging asset class.

To those who’ve been following the stance of the JP Morgan executive towards Bitcoin, the sentiment may come as a surprise. Earlier this year, the CEO of the international financial institution, Jamie Dimon, lambasted Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies with allegations that they were a “fraud” and they were destined to end up like the famous tulip bubble in 17th Century Holland in which many traders were burned. He even went as far as to say that any of his employees trading Bitcoin would be fired.

Thanks to recent positive developments, Mr Panigirtzoglou thinks the Bitcoin market might be maturing:

“The prospective launch of bitcoin futures contracts by established exchanges in particular has the potential to add legitimacy and thus increase the appeal of the cryptocurrency market to both retail and institutional investors.”

The analyst at JP Morgan likened Bitcoin to other stores of wealth such as gold. He went on to suggest that based on gold’s history, the world’s most famous cryptocurrency could see further growth.

Thanks to gold’s much greater market capitalisation and trading volume, Panigirtzoglou thinks there is plenty of room for Bitcoin to grow. He cited the total crypto market cap of $300 billion and compared this with the $1.5 trillion in gold outside of central banks control.

He did warn, however, that the rise was not guaranteed. When considering factors that could influence the price negatively, he cited other cryptocurrencies that might be more compliant with regulatory requirements:

“Any given cryptocurrency does face competition from other cryptocurrencies and this poses a risk to their individual valuation… The valuation of bitcoin for example is affected by other digital currencies that compete for acceptance, often claiming to offer better technical, security or transactional characteristics. Some of them could even gain advantage in the future by offering better compliance with regulatory requirements.”