JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has again slammed crypto—today saying that he’d “close it down” if he were the U.S. government.
“The true use case for it [crypto] is criminals, drug traffickers, money laundering, tax avoidance,” Dimon told lawmakers during a Senate Banking Committee hearing Wednesday.
“If I was the government, I’d close it down,” he added. “I’ve always been opposed to crypto, Bitcoin, etcetera.”
Dimon’s comments came after Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) asked the billionaire bank boss why “terrorists, drug traffickers and rogue nations” like crypto.
He went on to add that you can move money “almost instantaneously” with digital assets and that it was “somewhat anonymous.”
Dimon’s latest comments are not the first time he’s criticized Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies: he famously called Bitcoin a “fraud” back in 2017, and criticized his own daughter because she bought a bit of the biggest cryptocurrency by market cap.
The chief of the world’s biggest bank also once questioned whether Bitcoin would really have its supply capped at 21 million coins, saying: “Maybe it’s gonna get to 21 million and Satoshi’s picture is gonna come up and laugh at you all.”
Despite criticizing Bitcoin and decentralized cryptocurrencies, Dimon has praised its underlying technology and his bank has used blockchain for projects such as its JPM Coin, a digital coin that runs on a permissioned blockchain (a distributed ledger that is not publicly accessible like Ethereum or Bitcoin.)
The crypto industry’s X (formerly Twitter) users were quick to point this out—especially highlighting the amount of times JP Morgan and other banks have been fined by regulators for breaking rules.
Crypto advocates often push back at the notion that Bitcoin or other digital assets are disproportionately used by criminals, highlighting the fact that Bitcoin, in particular, operates on a transparent ledger and transactions can very easily be tracked.
Some government officials in the past, notably former CIA Director Michael Morell, have suggested that Bitcoin is actually a “boon” for law enforcement, considering how transparent it really is.
Stay on top of crypto news, get daily updates in your inbox.
