During an appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box on January 19, Dimon was questioned about his most recent stance on cryptocurrencies. In response, he asked the panel why they “waste any breath” discussing the subject before taking a dig at the flagship digital asset, “Bitcoin itself is a hyped-up fraud, a pet rock.” Although talking about the qualities of blockchain and ledger technology that JPMorgan thinks can be deployable as money, he questioned whether Bitcoin really is a store of value or as scarce as it’s supposed to be.
Dimon’s reaction to FTX collapse
The JPMorgan CEO also admittedly revealed he was ‘not surprised at all’ by the failure and subsequent bankruptcy of FTX, once one of the leading crypto exchanges in the world, ‘I called it a decentralized Ponzi scheme.’ Debated about saying whether cryptocurrency technology itself is a decentralized Ponzi scheme and what happened to FTX are two different things to which he replied. He added: Dimon is known to be a major skeptic of cryptocurrencies, having previously called Bitcoin a ‘fraud.’ Despite Dimon’s criticism of Bitcoin, JPMorgan is actively involved with incorporating blockchain into its services. For instance, the lender has its token dubbed JPM Coin for intraday repurchase agreements. While in December, the bank officially registered a cryptocurrency wallet trademark. Featured image via NBC News YouTube.
