DAVOS, Switzerland — Bitcoin does nothing, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon mentioned Wednesday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum.
“I name it the pet rock,” he added.
Dimon is a long-time bitcoin critic. The financial institution chief mentioned in 2021 at peak crypto valuations that bitcoin was “worthless,” and he doubled down on that sentiment final yr in Davos, Switzerland, when he informed CNBC that the digital forex was a “hyped-up fraud.”
Bitcoin is buying and selling simply above $42,700, up greater than 100% prior to now yr.
“This is the final time I’m talking about this with CNBC, so assist me God,” Dimon mentioned. “Blockchain is actual. It’s a expertise. We use it. It’s going to maneuver cash, it is going to transfer knowledge. It’s environment friendly. We’ve been talking about that for 12 years, too, and it is very small.”
“I believe we waste too many phrases on that,” Dimon added.
The financial institution chief went on to tell apart bitcoin from the opposite class of cryptocurrencies, those by which blockchain has enabled the usage of sensible contracts. Smart contracts are a programmable piece of code written on a public blockchain, corresponding to ethereum, which executes when sure situations are met, negating the necessity for a central middleman.
“There’s a cryptocurrency which could really do one thing,” Dimon mentioned of sensible chain-enriched blockchains. “You can use it to purchase and promote actual property and transfer knowledge — tokenizing issues that you simply do one thing with.”
“And then there’s one which does nothing,” Dimon mentioned of bitcoin, although he added that there have been actual use circumstances for the digital coin, which included upward of $100 billion a yr caught up in fraud, tax avoidance and intercourse trafficking. “I defend your proper to do bitcoin,” Dimon added, saying, “I do not wish to let you know what to do. So my private recommendation could be do not get entangled. … But it is a free nation.”
The world’s largest cryptocurrency, with a market cap of greater than $830 billion, was cemented as an asset class final week when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission approved the creation of bitcoin exchange-traded funds.
Some of the largest names in asset administration, together with BlackRock, Franklin Templeton and WisdomTree, have launched their very own spot bitcoin ETFs final week. For the $30 trillion suggested wealth administration business, the floodgates could be about to open. Analysts at Standard Chartered anticipate fund inflows within the vary of $50 billion to $100 billion in 2024.
When requested what he made from Larry Fink altering his view on bitcoin as BlackRock jumped into the spot ETF enterprise, Dimon mentioned, “I do not care. So simply please cease talking about this s***.”
“I do not know what he would say about blockchain versus currencies that do one thing versus bitcoin that does nothing,” Dimon added. “But that is what makes a market. People have opinions, and that is the final time I’m ever going to state my opinion.”
