The CEO of banking giant JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, attacked Bitcoin one more time. In a recent event with the Global Association of the Financial Industry (IFF), the executive reiterated the position he has maintained for several years: BTC has no value.
Ever since Bitcoin started gaining more traction as an alternative investment to traditional finances, Dimon has been there to dismiss the cryptocurrency as an illicit medium of exchange, a fraud, a scam, and has been known for predicting the death of BTC. In the meantime, BTC’s price has continued to increase.
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According to pseudonym Bitcoin investors Bitstein, the cryptocurrency records a 7,000% profit since January 23rd, 2014, when Dimon first made a comment on BTC for CNBC. At the time, the banking executive called the cryptocurrency a “terrible store of value”.
Calculations made by the community member indicate that a person that started buying $1 worth of Bitcoin on that date for over 4 years would have made a $2,817 investment. Due to the increase in the price of BTC, the invested capital will now be worth over $170,000.
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In contrast, an investment in JP Morgan Chase has a 97% loss in a 5-year period when compared to Bitcoin, a 65% and 30% loss in a year and 3-month period, respectively.
Despite these numbers, the CEO of JP Morgan Chase told the audience at the IIF event that Bitcoin has no value comparing the cryptocurrency with smoking. In that sense, he claimed the following on his position and the fact that the bank still offers BTC investment products to its clients:
Our clients are adults, they disagree, that’s what makes markets. If they want to have access to buy or sell Bitcoin, we can’t custody it, but we can give them legitimate, as clean as possible access.
.@jpmorgan's Jamie Dimon says he personally thinks #bitcoin is worthless: "I don't think you should smoke cigarettes either, but our clients are adults." #IIFLive
— IIF (@IIF) October 11, 2021
The 21 Million Bitcoin Fixed Supply, Why Dimon Is A Non Believer
5 months ago, as Bitcoinist reported, Dimon was making different predictions for Bitcoin and the rest of the crypto market. Sitting at an estimated valuation of $2 trillion, the executive claimed that it could potentially hit over 2x times that in the next years.
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Furthermore, Dimon said that more regulations are necessary for the crypto industry to reach these levels. The comments were made at the Investment Company Institute (ICI) annual meeting where the CEO of JP Morgan Chase also took on the opportunity to attack Bitcoin:
I’m not a fan of Bitcoin. But forget whether I am or not. There should be legal, regulatory, tax, related framework, AML, around crypto. It’s now worth $2 trillion. When are they going to say, “Oh my God, this is worthy of our attention.
This time he went deeper claiming that Bitcoin’s fixed total supply, set at 21 million BTC, is part of the reason he lacks confidence in the cryptocurrency, Dimon said:
I’ll just challenge the group to one other thing: 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.
This comment was the source of much controversy in the crypto community and triggered a reply from many within and outside the space. The CEO of MicroStrategy, Michael Saylor, said that bankers and institutions are faced with one could one of the most important questions of their career.
The critical question faced by bankers and investors worldwide is “Do you understand #Bitcoin?” https://t.co/FdQcqXoZ02
— Michael Saylor
(@michael_saylor) October 11, 2021
At the time of writing, BTC trades at $57,406 with a 4.6% profit in the daily chart.
