Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co., speaks during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., US, on Wednesday, December 6, 2023. Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is done talking about Bitcoin again.
In an interview with CNBC from Davos, a visibly amused Dimon announced that he was vowing to voice his opinion on cryptocurrency. When asked about the new Bitcoin ETF approved by the SEC last week, Dimon interrupted CNBC host Andrew Ross Sorkin, who is also a… New York timesto say:
“So this is a big deal, this is the last time I’m going to talk about this on CNBC — so help me, God,” Damon said to laughter from studio hosts Sorkin, Joe Kernen and Becky Quick.
This kind of exasperation has become a staple of Dimon’s when discussing Bitcoin. He has been saying he will never talk about Bitcoin again since 2017.
Dimon continued his criticism of Bitcoin, saying: “It does nothing.”
“I call it my pet rock,” he said.
Dimon then corrected himself to say that he believes Bitcoin actually has some uses. He said they were all illegal, such as money laundering, fraud, tax evasion or as payment for sex trafficking.
There is evidence to support Damon’s claim. The Government Accountability Office found that 15 out of 27 online commercial sex sites it examined in a June 2021 report accepted cryptocurrencies. While the United Nations has issued warnings that cryptocurrency platforms are often used to launder money by criminal groups in Southeast Asia.
Despite these concerns, the cryptocurrency market has been exceptionally strong in recent years after a near-death experience during the “crypto winter” of 2022. In 2023, the market capitalization of the entire cryptocurrency industry grew by 95%, although It is still down 35% from its all-time high during the pandemic. The recent SEC approval of the ETF is also a sign that cryptocurrencies are becoming a legitimate financial asset. Despite Dimon’s objections to owning cryptocurrency himself, many individual investors do. A 2022 study found that 36% of millennials and 20% of all adults own cryptocurrencies.
Dimon’s history of talking about Bitcoin
Over the years, Damon has been vocal about his dislike of cryptocurrencies, calling people who invest in bitcoin “stupid” and once threatening to fire any employee caught investing in them. Meanwhile, he described the asset itself as an “overrated scam” and a “waste of time.” At a Senate hearing in December, Dimon said that if it had been up to him he would have “shut it down,” prompting a surprised response from cryptocurrency hawk Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).
Other major financial companies like BlackRock and Goldman Sachs had similar positions before changing their minds as cryptocurrencies became more popular and profitable. In 2020, Goldman Sachs published an analysis note explaining why Bitcoin should no longer be considered an asset class that was widely shared in both Wall Street and cryptocurrency circles. While its chief investment officer remains wary of Bitcoin, CEO David Solomon has indicated that Goldman Sachs would be interested in acquiring crypto companies with deals.
When CNBC asked Dimon about companies offering cryptocurrency products to their clients, he responded with the same no he reserved for the asset itself.
“Number one I don’t care about,” he told Sorkin. “So please stop talking about this shit.”
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink was once in Dimon’s camp as a vocal critic of Bitcoin, concerned that its use was limited beyond criminal activity. In 2017, Fink called Bitcoin a “money laundering indicator” and the only thing it was useful for was showing the extent of demand for that specific financial crime. However, Fink would eventually change his tune. By 2020, he believed it could grow into a global market. Fast forward to this month, when Bitcoin received the stamp of approval to become a spot ETF, and BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, owns the third-most bitcoins of any public company.
Fellow asset manager Fidelity was early to embrace Bitcoin. It began mining the cryptocurrency in 2014, before launching its first trading platform in 2018. While BlackRock’s other rivals, State Street and Vanguard, the world’s second and third largest asset managers respectively, have chosen to stay away from Bitcoin altogether.
“The investment case for cryptocurrencies is weak,” Vanguard told Bloomberg in December. “Unlike stocks and bonds, most crypto assets lack intrinsic economic value and do not generate any cash flows.
This line of thinking was similar to that of Dimon, who in his CNBC interview repeatedly raised concerns about Bitcoin’s ultimate function — aside from aiding and abetting crime, he said. Instead, Dimon sought to distinguish between Bitcoin and blockchain, the technology that allows Bitcoin to be traded without the approval of a central agency. Bitcoin’s advocates tout the ability to trade assets without having to rely on a bank or clearing authority as the primary advantage that makes it different from any other currency or asset. According to Damon, Blockchain technology has been useful for exchanging assets or data. Although it is believed that even on this topic enough ink has been spilled.
“It’s very small,” he said of blockchain. “I think we wasted a lot of words on this.”