JPMorgan CEO deems Bitcoin & other crypto “decentralized Ponzi schemes”

Sahana Kiran
Bitcoin
Source – Unsplash

The crypto-verse has amassed immense hate over the years of its existence. From government officials to the average Joe, none of them have spared taking shots at Bitcoin [BTC]. Enduring it all, the industry managed to emerge as a trillion-dollar entity. With adoption at full spree, the crypto market is a highly sought-after industry. Despite its upward trajectory, the backlash and criticism persist. This time, Bitcoin was brought down before United States lawmakers.

The CEO of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon has been a longtime crypto skeptic. Time and again he has brought to light that he isn’t a big fan of Bitcoin. Dimon was certainly practicing what he preached. While recently testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, Dimon outrightly labeled Bitcoin and currencies similar to it as a Ponzi scheme.

He said,

“I’m a major skeptic on crypto tokens, which you call currency, like Bitcoin. They are decentralized Ponzi schemes.”

This did not come as a surprise considering Dimon’s statements about Bitcoin in the past. The JPMorgan CEO had previously called BTC “fraud” and even noted how he was least interested in the industry.

At the latest hearing, noted the importance of blockchain as well as decentralized finance. He even went on to include smart contracts in the list. But, cryptocurrencies did not seem to make it to the cut for him.

Will JPMorgan’s inclination towards crypto drop to the ground?

It seems like significant members of JPMorgan Chase weren’t too happy with the crypto industry. Earlier this week, the firm’s global head of payments Takis Georgakopoulos suggested that crypto has “a niche use case.” In addition to this, he pointed out that the demand for crypto for payments had plummeted over the last six months. This is speculated to be due to the advent of the bears.

He added,

“When it comes to crypto as a payment method, we saw a lot of demand [from] our clients, let’s say up until six months ago. We see very little right now.”

Once again Georgakopoulos noted how blockchain technology was rather revolutionary. Therefore, the community believes that JPMorgan is likely to continue betting big on blockchain technology while shunning crypto.