by Kevin Helms
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon calls bitcoin “a hyped-up fraud.” The executive questioned the cryptocurrency’s supply cap, expecting a picture of bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto to pop up and laugh at us all when bitcoin’s supply hits 21 million coins.
The CEO of global investment bank JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, reiterated his skepticism about bitcoin in an interview with CNBC Thursday. The JPMorgan executive claimed:
Bitcoin itself is a hyped-up fraud. It’s a pet rock.
Regarding the collapse of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Dimon commented: “I’m not surprised at all. I call them a decentralized Ponzi scheme. The hype around this thing has been extraordinary.”
Dimon also reiterated his doubt about BTC’s 21 million supply cap, suggesting that bitcoin’s pseudonymous creator Satoshi Nakamoto could remove the cryptocurrency’s supply limit. He said:
How do you know it’s going to stop at 21 million? Maybe it’s going to get to 21 million and Satoshi’s picture is going to come up and laugh at you all … and by then Satoshi would have taken out billions of dollars.
While he is bullish on blockchain technology, the JPMorgan boss stressed: “Crypto itself doesn’t do anything. It’s a pet rock.” He then told the news outlet: “I don’t care about bitcoin so we should drop this subject.”
This was not the first time Dimon questioned bitcoin’s limited supply. In October 2021, he similarly said: “How do you know it ends at 21 million? You all read the algorithms? You guys all believe that? I don’t know, I’ve always been a skeptic of stuff like that.” Last December, he likened crypto tokens to pet rocks. Moreover, he said during a congressional hearing in September that cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin, are “decentralized Ponzi schemes.”
Many bitcoin proponents mocked Dimon on social media for his lack of understanding. One tweeted: “Dimon just said on CNBC that Satoshi can increase the Bitcoin cap. He’s an idiot but I am sure most people agree with him. Satoshi is irrelevant, it’s the code and the network now.” Another opined: “It’s sad that Jamie Dimon doesn’t understand that you can look at the source code to know that a laughing picture of Satoshi doesn’t come up at 21,000,000.” A third wrote:
Jamie Dimon either has no clue what Bitcoin is, or he knows exactly what it is, yet ridicules and dismisses it out of pure fear of it being the ultimate disruptor to legacy banking’s core business of excessive and egregious fees.
What do you think about Jamie Dimon’s view on bitcoin and his expectation that Satoshi’s picture will pop up at 21 million coins? Let us know in the comments section below.
A student of Austrian Economics, Kevin found Bitcoin in 2011 and has been an evangelist ever since. His interests lie in Bitcoin security, open-source systems, network effects and the intersection between economics and cryptography.
Image Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons
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