The CEO of JP Morgan has some harsh words to say about Bitcoin. A long-time critic of Crypto Currencies, Jamie Dimon labelled Bitcoin as a “fraud” and said he would fire any trader who traded on it for being “stupid”.
These comments were made at an even that was hosted by Barclays and were reported by Bloomberg. He also claimed that that it “won't end well” is “worse than the tulip bubble” and will “blow up”.
I’d fire them in a second. For two reasons: It’s against our rules, and they’re stupid. And both are dangerous
Dimon went on to say that he was sceptical that authorities would allow a decentralised currency to exist without government oversight. He made reference to the moves by the Chinese authorities recently to control cryptocurrency exchanges.
He did try to make a differentiation between decentralised currency and block chain technology. He mentioned that the latter can be useful but the former is looked upon negatively. He claimed that “murderers” and “drug dealers” had a need for it but not really anyone else.
These comments may have had an impact on the price of Bitcoin. As they were made the crypto currency was down by over 2%. However, this could also have been a result of news out of China that certain OTC markets, namely BitKan were suspending trading.
FUD?
Jamie Dimon has now added his name to the list of long time Bitcoin sceptics including the world famous Nobel Laurate, Robert Shiller. In an interview he also used the tulip analogy as an example of how Bitcoin could develop. The tulip bubble was a mania in 18th century where the price of tulips skyrocketed.
Although the bank chief seemed certain in his views he said he would not be placing any short trades. He said shorting it would be risky based on how much higher it could go.
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