Jamie Dimon says he would shut down crypto if he could
Jamie Dimon has told US legislators he would close the cryptocurrency industry if he had their power.
“If I was the government, I’d close it down,” the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase said at the Senate Banking Committee’s annual Wall Street oversight hearing on Wednesday.
Jamie Dimon ... and one more thing about cryptocurrencies. Bloomberg
The remarks add to Mr Dimon’s long history of bashing digital currencies, which he has previously called “Ponzi schemes” and a “fraud”.
His latest comments follow a series of hacks and scandals in the crypto industry, which has been under increased scrutiny from US regulators and legislators since the unwinding of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency platform.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, used the hearing to team up with Republicans and banking leaders to take aim at the crypto industry.
“Today’s terrorists have a new way to get around the Bank Secrecy Act: cryptocurrency,” Senator Warren said.
Mr Dimon and other industry chiefs, including Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan, said they had safeguards in place to prevent terrorists and other illegal actors from using their institutions. Senator Warren contrasted that with the crypto market, and said anti-money-laundering rules that banks followed should be extended to digital assets. All the CEOs said they agreed.
“I’m not usually holding hands with the CEOs of multibillion-dollar banks, but this is a matter of national security,” said Senator Warren, who has previously raised concerns about the need for regulation and about links that major lenders have with the crypto industry.
Mr Dimon’s repeated criticism of the crypto industry does not extend to blockchain technology, which the bank has enlisted for several projects.
JPMorgan was an early mover with its JPM Coin, a proprietary stablecoin that allows clients to make blockchain-based payments. The bank has projected the token could be handling as much as $US10 billion ($15 billion) in daily transactions within the next two years, from about $US1 billion now.
At 5.50am, bitcoin was up 0.6 per cent to $US43,490 on bitstamp.net.
Bloomberg
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