JPMorgan’s Dimon Sounds Off (Again) About Bitcoin

JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon is at it again – he’s slamming bitcoin, the popular digital currency, just weeks after receiving flack for calling it a fraud.

During an Institute of International Finance conference late last week, Dimon was asked a question about bitcoin and responded by saying, “If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price for it one day.” This came just one day after Dimon said on an earnings conference call that he was no longer going to discuss bitcoin, and as the price of the digital currency hit more than $5,800 Friday (Oct. 13) – up more than six times its value at the beginning of the year.

Dimon noted that the blockchain technology that powers bitcoin is real, but that he doesn’t understand the value of digital currencies that aren’t backed by the government. “Who cares about bitcoin? The world economy is so big,” Dimon said, according to CNBC. He said JPMorgan alone moves around $6 trillion in money every day.

“This is the last time I’m ever going to answer any questions about bitcoin, because I really don’t care,” Dimon said at the conference. “When I made that ‘stupid statement’ [calling bitcoin a] fraud, my daughter sent me an email saying, ‘Dad, I own two bitcoins.’ My formerly smart daughter.”

He went on to say that he thinks there’s a high chance buyers are “out there jazzing it up every day so that maybe you’ll buy it too, and take them out.” He also argued that governments, which like to control their own currency, are going to clamp down on the market via regulation.

“The other thing I’ve always [said] about bitcoin, governments – and this is not a technological statement – governments are going to crush it one day. Governments like to know where the money is, who has it and what you’re doing with it, in case you haven’t noticed. Right?” Dimon said, reported CNBC. “And governments like to control their currency, like to control their own economy. So, China’s already put curbs on it. Japan, they say Japan accepted bitcoin. No, they didn’t. What I gather Japan did was they call it J-coin. It’s a yen cryptocurrency. It’s not a non-fiat [digital currency].”

China has already banned digital currency exchanges and initial coin offerings, while other governments have issued warnings about the risks associated with it.