Like a jealous ex-lover who can't seem to see their ex doing well without them, Jamie Dimon is back to bashing his favourite target. Yesterday he came out and claimed that Bitcoin investors were “stupid”.
He seems to have a bee in his bonnet about Bitcoin. His comments come just 2 days after he said in an interview with CNBC that he is “done talking about Bitcoin”. The temptation must have been too much as he also claimed yesterday that these stupid investors will “pay the price”.
We all know Jamie as quite a vocal yet shrinking opponent on Wall Street. Just last month he labelled Bitcoin a fraud. This also coincided with news from China that they would be banning Bitcoin exchanges which caused a collapse in the price of Bitcoin.
Many Bitcoin investors would then have been quite surprised to see a large number of trades that went through on Bitcoin exchange traded notes on a Swedish exchange. This led to a firm in London filing market abuse claims.
Contradictions and Conflicts
In the CNBC interview on the 12th of October, Dimon was recorded as saying that he would not put this as something that was an “important category”. His CFO differed slightly and said that she would be open to the idea of regulated cryptocurrencies.
After these comments, Jamie promised to keep his mouth shut about Bitcoin. This was a great idea that lasted for about 24 hours…
Yesterday at the Institute of Finance conference, Dimon continued his attack on Bitcoin. Ironically, these comments were made at a time when Bitcoin was also breaking new all-time highs above $5,500. He said that:
I could care less what bitcoin trades for, how it trades, why it trades, who trades it. If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price for it one day. I’ve also told people that it can trade at $100,000 before it trades to zero. Tulip bulbs traded for $75,000 or something like that — Who cares about bitcoin? The world economy is so big
He continued his attempt at delegitimizing Bitcoin by comparing the market volume of Bitcoin to that of JP Morgan. He also claimed that the news media such as CNBC was helping to “pump” the value of Bitcoin through their coverage. He then went on to label his own daughter as “stupid”.
The Winds of Change
Whether Jamie Dimon actually believes what he is saying about Bitcoin is hard to tell. It is hard to imagine that a CEO of a fortune 500 company such as JP Morgan can be so ignorant to revolutionary new technology. He is probably being disingenuous.
Jamie Dimon sees the revolution in Bitcoin and he is worried about it. It threatens his livelihood and stature directly. It is a concept that he cannot seem to bring down and he keeps trying to discredit it.
Like a sailor that was afraid to discover new lands because he thought the world was flat, Jamie Dimon will be left behind as the world discovers decentralised finance.
Featured Image via Wikimedia
