Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, says bitcoin is a “souped scam” and cryptocurrencies are “a waste of time” — but blockchain is a “deployable” technology
Despite the ongoing crypto winter, Bitcoin supporters are certain that the future is bright for the fledgling industry. And so far this year, they’ve had reason to celebrate. Bitcoin’s price is up more than 25% in just the past few weeks after a dismal 2022. But JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon still doesn’t believe it. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Dimon criticized cryptocurrencies as a distraction.
“I think that was all a waste of time and why you guys are wasting your breath on it is beyond me,” he said CNBC. “Bitcoin itself is a hyped scam. It’s a pet rock.”
This isn’t the first time Dimon has voiced his doubts about cryptocurrencies — or used a “pet rock” analogy to describe digital assets. The CEO has called Bitcoin a “scam” since 2017; and following the explosion of what was once the second-largest crypto exchange, FTX, late last year, he argued the entire industry was a “complete sideshow.”
CNBC host Joe Kernen on Thursday dismissed Dimon’s claims that Bitcoin is a scam, arguing that the cryptocurrency is a “store of value” that is “immutable” and “scarce,” noting that his log suggests that there will only ever be 21 million coins.
“Completely untrue. How do you know it’s going to stop at 21 million? Maybe it will be 21 million and Satoshi’s picture will pop up and laugh at you all,” Dimon joked, referring to the alias Satoshi Nakamoto used by Bitcoin’s anonymous creator or creators.
But while Dimon doesn’t believe in cryptocurrencies, he has a much more positive attitude when it comes to the blockchain technology they’re built on.
“It’s different,” he said on Thursday. “Blockchain is a technology ledger system that we use to move information. We used it to do overnight repo, intraday repo, we used it to move money right? So this is a technology ledger that we believe will be deployable.”
Dimon and JPMorgan have been committed to blockchain technology since 2017, when the bank was one of 86 firms that helped create an open-source blockchain initiative called The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance. And as Dimon mentioned above, the company uses its own cryptocurrency, the JPM Coin, to conduct intraday repo trades. But on Thursday, Dimon noted that the financial industry has been talking about using blockchain technology for 12 years, and he said “very little has been done” up to this point.
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