Story at a glance:
- Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, says Bitcoin is “worthless” but blockchain is cool.
- Dimon said being bullish for bitcoin is like believing in fool’s gold.
- JPM Chase has its own digital currency called JPM Coin that is similar to bitcoin but more exclusive when it comes to who can own it.
As Bitcoin makes a slow pandemic-related recovery from its all-time high of $60,000, Jamie Dimon, CEO and chairman of JPMorgan Chase, says it’s “worthless” anyway.
Speaking out against the largest cryptocurrency by market value at the Institute of International Finance event on Monday, Dimon said “I personally think that Bitcoin is worthless,” however he thinks the technology behind blockchain is a great asset, CNBC reported.
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In his opinion, being bullish for Bitcoin, or believing there is a sustainable increase in price in Bitcoin, is like believing in fool’s gold.
He has been a longtime critic of Bitcoin, saying it is going to be regulated or banned in certain countries.
In an interview with Axios’s co-founder Jim VandeHei, Dimon said that “[bitcoin has] no intrinsic value [, and] I’ve always believed it’ll be made illegal someplace, like China made it illegal, so I think it’s a little bit of fool’s gold.”
Despite his pushback, JPM Chase is inclusive of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, having in February 2019 started introducing its digital currency called JPM Coin.
It is like bitcoin, but JPM Coin is more selective on who can own it. Only institutional clients who have been vetted by Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-money Laundering can send international payments and cross-border payments in the emergence of IPOs moving to blockchains.
In October 2020, the company expanded its operations with a new unit that handles blockchain projects, and this August, the company started giving access to crypto funds to its wealth management clients, CNBC reported.
As of reporting at 2 p.m. on Oct. 12, a single bitcoin is estimated to be between $56,000 and $57,000 with a market value of more than $1 trillion.
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Published on Oct. 12, 2021
Source: thehill.com