Jamie Dimon – the man in charge of JPMorgan Chase, arguably one of the biggest financial companies in the world – really can’t stand bitcoin. In fact, he recently had a long conversation about how much he doesn’t care for it.
Jamie Dimon: BTC’s Biggest Hater?
In a recent interview, he referred to bitcoin as a big “waste of time” and didn’t think anybody should spend a single moment talking or even thinking about the asset or its alleged prospects. He said:
I think all that’s been a waste of time, and why you guys waste any breath on it is totally beyond me. Bitcoin itself is a hyped-up fraud. It’s a Pet Rock… It doesn’t do anything. I don’t care about bitcoin, so we should drop the subject.
Dimon is clearly suffering from BDS or bitcoin derangement syndrome (we just made this up). It’s something that a lot of people seem to be dealing with at press time, and to an extent, we really can’t blame them. The fact is that bitcoin – while still a solid asset in its own right – has let a lot of people down in the past 12 months.
After reaching a new all-time high of $68,000 per unit in November of 2021, the currency entered a bearish arena that took it well into the final weeks of 2022. That means for more than a year, bitcoin has been stuck in a state of volatility and speculation unlike anything traders or investors have ever seen.
Within a year of reaching said high, the world’s number one digital currency by market cap fell by more than 70 percent and was trading in the mid-$16K range by the time we were ready to say hello to 2023. BTC also took the industry down with it. It’s estimated that the crypto space lost as much as $2 trillion in overall valuation. No matter how you look at it, 2022 was just a big slap in the face.
Dimon was also quick to give his thoughts on the FTX debacle, and he claims he wasn’t surprised when the digital trading platform fell into a heap of bankruptcy and fraud. He commented:
I’m not surprised at all. I called it a decentralized Ponzi scheme. The hype around this thing has been extraordinary. You guys, have you all seen… the analysis and all these things and the lack of disclosures and it’s outrageous… Regulators should’ve put a stop to this a long time ago. People have lost billions of dollars.
He Does Care for Blockchain
By contrast, while Dimon doesn’t seem to like BTC, he was quick to praise blockchain and says that JPMorgan has even used the technology in the past. He said:
We’ve used it to move money. It’s a technology ledger type that we think will be deployable.
Source: https://www.livebitcoinnews.com/jamie-dimon-is-clearly-not-a-btc-fan/