JPMorgan’s New Crypto Bond ‘Not for the Faint of Heart,’ Former Star Analyst Hintz Says

Like a lot of Wall Street’s alchemical “structured products,” JPMorgan Chase’s new cryptocurrency-focused bond is full of arcane risks – many of them detailed in the fine print in the largest U.S. bank’s 18-page regulatory filing on the newfangled financial offering.

Daunted by the prospect of dissecting the instrument on our own, CoinDesk turned to the smartest person we could think of to undertake the effort: Brad Hintz, an adjunct finance professor at New York University and former top-ranked brokerage-firm analyst for Sanford Bernstein, itself among the best-of-the-best when it comes to investment research. Before that Hintz served as corporate treasurer for Morgan Stanley and CFO for Lehman Brothers (in the good times).

In other words: He understands what to make of complicated financial instruments like these, and how to think about them. Here’s what he wrote back, via a message on LinkedIn: