Traditional Finance Giants Reverse Course on Crypto

The boundary between traditional finance and crypto assets is being redrawn. BlackRock CEO Larry Fink called Bitcoin an “index of money laundering” in 2017, while JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon once dismissed it as a fraud. But opportunities in ETFs, payments and tokenization have prompted Wall Street to change course. Crypto-related money laundering was estimated at $82 billion in 2025, still below the $800 billion to $2 trillion laundered through traditional channels each year.

The latest reversals have translated into products and revenue. BlackRock launched a spot Bitcoin ETF on January 11, 2024. Peter Schiff launched the on-chain gold platform T-Gold.com in December 2025, while Nouriel Roubini published a USAFi white paper in late June 2026. Donald Trump has reportedly earned more than $2.3 billion from crypto ventures since 2024.