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JP Morgan CEO: Bitcoin is Going Nowhere

Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:46 PM
Samburaj Das
Last Updated March 4, 2021 4:46 PM

Noted Bitcoin skeptic Jamie Dimon was asked about Bitcoin during a recent televised interview. He doesn’t see the cryptocurrency going anywhere, although he does state blockchain technology “is real.”

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon appeared in a CNBC interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where the interviewer brought up the subject of electronic currencies, specifically Bitcoin.

A previous interview between the two had Dimon remark that bitcoin “was going nowhere fast.” The comment was made during a previous installment of the WEC in Davos, years ago. The question resurfaced, with the interviewer stating, “now, it [bitcoin] seems to be reemerging potentially.”

To this, Dimon responded, “No. I think it’s two things,” he started, separating Bitcoin and blockchain technology.

There’s Bitcoin, the currency, I think is going to go nowhere and that’s not because of anything to do with technology.

The CEO of the largest bank in the United States by assets pointed to governmental controls that will curb virtual currencies.

“Governments, when they form themselves, form their currency. Governments like to control currency [and] know where it goes and who it goes to and control it for monetary purposes,” he added.

There is nothing behind a bitcoin and I think if it was big, the governments would stop it.

The subtle dig at the biggest cryptocurrency there is echoes a previous statement made by Dimon in November 2015 when he claimed Bitcoin “is like 2 billion or 3 billion dollars,” while JP Morgan moves 6 trillion dollars a day. “So, you’ve got to [put it in perspective],” he said at the time.

“That’s my own personal belief,” he added now while including,” I may be dead wrong.”

Having separated the currency from the technology, Dimon then had a different take on the blockchain.

The blockchain is a technology which we have been studying…and yes it’s real.

Dimon quickly explained the blockchain as “keeping a single file as opposed [to multiple files].”

It has certain security measures. If it proves to be cheap and secure, it will be adopted for a whole bunch of stuff.

“Not for everything,” he further opined about the blockchain, “it is not usable for certain types of things.”

JP Morgan is among a group of banks participating in the R3-led blockchain consortium looking into the applications of distributed ledger technology into present-day financial systems. For the first time since putting together a group of 42 global banks, R3 revealed an experiment conducted between 11 partner banks across multiple continents, using a private distributed ledger powered by Ethereum technology.

JP Morgan is also among several banks that form a part of the Open Ledger Project, overseen by the Linux Foundation and headed by IBM as an open-source distributed ledger effort.

Jamie Dimon’s latest comments come after a recent talk at the Fortune Global Forum where he deemed Bitcoin as “a waste of time.”

The full CNBC interview can be found here  ($).

Image from Wikimedia.