Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, has advised investors to stay away from bitcoin. “My personal advice is don’t get involved,” he said. “But I don’t want to tell anyone what to do. It’s a free country.” The executive added that he doesn’t care about Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, embracing bitcoin, insisting that the cryptocurrency’s use cases are illicit activities.
JPMorgan CEO’s Bitcoin Investing Advice
The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, once again weighed in on bitcoin and crypto investing in an interview with CNBC on Wednesday. His comments came amid growing institutional interest in crypto, with major asset management firms, like Blackrock, embracing BTC following the approval of spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs) by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Dimon began by stating: “Blockchain is real. It’s a technology. We use it. It’s gonna move money, it’s gonna move data, it’s efficient. We’ve been talking about that for 12 years too. And it’s very small.” Regarding cryptocurrencies, the JPMorgan boss said there are two types. “There’s a cryptocurrency which might actually do something,” Dimon explained. “If a cryptocurrency has an embedded smart contract in it, and then we can use it to buy and sell real estate, move data that may have value … tokenizing things that you do something with.”
The JPMorgan executive proceeded to describe the second type of cryptocurrency. “And then there’s one which does nothing, I called it pet rock, the bitcoin, something like that,” he stated, reiterating his previous statement about bitcoin’s use cases being illicit activities. “So on the bitcoin … there are use cases: AML, fraud, anti-money laundering, tax avoidance, sex trafficking — those are real use cases. And you see it being used for … maybe $50 billion, a $100 billion a year for that. That is the end use case. Everything else is people trading among themselves.” Nonetheless, Dimon insisted, “I defend your right to do bitcoin,” elaborating:
My personal advice is don’t get involved. But I don’t want to tell anyone what to do. It’s a free country.
When questioned about the recent involvement of major asset managers like Blackrock and Fidelity in the bitcoin market, including Blackrock CEO Larry Fink becoming a big believer in BTC, Dimon responded:
Number one, I don’t care. So just please stop talking about this.
“And I don’t know what he [Larry Fink] would say about blockchain versus currencies that do something versus bitcoin that does nothing … But you know this is what makes a market. People have opinions, and this is the last time I’m ever going to state my opinion,” Dimon concluded.
Blackrock launched a spot bitcoin ETF, the Ishares Bitcoin Trust, last week with JPMorgan as a lead authorized participant. Dimon has long been a vocal bitcoin and crypto skeptic. He said in December last year that he would close crypto down if he were the government.
Dimon’s statements about bitcoin drew lots of comments on social media. Microstrategy’s executive chairman, Michael Saylor, an avid Bitcoin advocate, commented on X: “If you encounter a strange new asset (‘Pet Rock’) circulating on a blockchain that ‘does nothing’ other than allow people to own something they can ‘trade among themselves’ without fear of debasement or theft, you have just discovered digital money.”
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