JP Morgan's Dimon: "Bitcoin is Useless"
Plus, YouTube Censors Bitcoin Episode
“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 sceptic of stuff like that.” - Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan CEO.
Longtime Bitcoin critic Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan & Company, was at it again on Monday. Dimon decried Bitcoin as “useless” and went so far as to question the very Bitcoin code that limits Bitcoin’s quantity to 21 million coins. (Satoshi Nakamoto must be either laughing or crying.)
Responses to Dimon’s quotes, made on Monday at an Institute of International Finance event, came swiftly and from all angles. Check out a sample of this week’s tweets:
And, on Dimon making a fortune in the legacy banking system:
Dimon’s been dissing on Bitcoin since 2014, and look at what the asset price has done since then:
Words versus Actions: JPM Hypocrisy?
Dimon’s views don’t mesh at all with actions taken by JP Morgan.
In early 2019, Morgan announced it was launching its own digital currency, to be called the “JPM Coin.” Then in 2020, the firm created a new unit to dig deep into crypto research and other blockchain projects. And just two months ago, Morgan started giving its wealthiest clients access to various crypto funds, which of course contain Bitcoin. Believers or not, the JPM management team is trying to give the clients what they want. Says Dimon, “Our clients are adults. They disagree. That’s what makes markets.”
NOTE - Jamie Dimon’s critics like to point out that, in 2013 under Dimon’s charge, JP Morgan paid the US government a whopping $13 billion fine to settle claims that it underwrote fraudulent securities in years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. Securities created by the legacy banking system that ended up being, well, mostly worthless.
YouTube Censors Pompliano’s Bitcoin Episode
Anthony Pompliano, host of the popular Pomp Podcast and The Best Business Show, had his YouTube channel taken down on Monday. YouTube labeled the channel as “harmful and dangerous,” and described his newest video as “encouraging illegal activities.”
“Pomp,” with 1.1 million Twitter followers and 256,000 YouTube subscribers, has been a staunch supporter of Bitcoin, and boasts the best lineup of guests from the crypto and Bitcoin world. The allegedly dangerous episode featured the Bitcoin analyst simply known as Plan B. Plan B is the inventor of the popular Bitcoin pricing “Stock to Flow Model,” derived from his study of Bitcoin supply and incoming flows.
I enjoyed the episode in podcast version during my Monday evening run, and certainly heard nothing in the show that could be remotely considered harmful or dangerous. YouTube has had a history of censoring certain crypto-related programs, though it’s not clear why. The censorship action actually drew quite a bit of attention to Pomp’s channel, and as a result may have backfired. YouTube reinstated the channel several hours later.
Pomp now calls the episode “The Bitcoin Interview That YouTube Tried to Delete.”
This Month in Bitcoin History:
One year ago, PayPal announced that it would allow its users to buy and sell Bitcoin on its platform, although not to deposit or withdraw Bitcoins.
Bitcoin Stat of the Week:
Bitcoin’s Market Cap now stands at $1.08 trillion.
The market cap of all the Silver in the world is $1.3 trillion.
Will Bitcoin flip silver soon, then set its sights on Gold?
Issue No. 25, October 15, 2021
Rick Mulvey is a CPA, forensic accountant and crypto consultant. He writes about all things Bitcoin, and yells at the Yankees and Giants. He also runs marathons and makes wine, neither professionally.
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