Amid increasing institutional interest and a recent spike in Bitcoin’s price, JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, known for its skepticism toward Bitcoin, went a step further by calling the crypto “worthless” yesterday.

                By                    Yaёl Bizouati-Kennedy

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Harsh responses quickly piled on, as observers and big-time names noted the discrepancy between Dimon’s remarks and Bitcoin’s run lately. Mike Novogratz, founder and CEO of crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, called his remarks “sophomoric.”

“So strange. For a man who has done a brilliant job running a giant bank, his answers around $BTC are sophomoric and he keeps doubling down on them. I pray I stay open minded my whole life,” Novogratz tweeted yesterday.

— Mike Novogratz (@novogratz) October 11, 2021

“I personally think that Jaime [sic] Dimon is worth more to Bitcoin…” Twitter’s Jack Dorsey tweeted back.

“After the strong Q3 performance Bitcoin is now up 49.1% year-to-date,” Bitcoin tweeted in regard to NYDIG data.

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During an Institute of International Finance event on Monday, Dimon doubled down on its stance, saying “I personally think that bitcoin is worthless,” “Our clients are adults. They disagree. That’s what makes markets,” according to MarketWatch. “So, if they want to have access to buy yourself bitcoin, we can’t custody it, but we could give them legitimate, as clean as possible, access.”

“Regulation would be a huge step in further cementing the legitimacy of bitcoin and the crypto market as a whole, and will expand education and get more people involved, which would in turn increase values over time,” he said. “Crypto democratized the retail investor space and it’s brought millions of people an opportunity to participate in the value creation of a whole new, and very inclusive, multi-trillion-dollar industry.”

Dimon has been repeatedly a harsh critic of cryptos, including last month, for example: “I don’t know if it’s an asset. I don’t know if it’s foreign exchange. I don’t know if it’s a currency,” Dimon said at the time, according to Bitcoin Magazine adding that regulation will constrain Bitcoin, but as to “whether it eliminates it, I have no idea and I don’t personally care. I am not a buyer of Bitcoin.”

“Paper currencies are being printed with reckless abandon all over the world and are becoming inherently less valuable every minute., so I do understand the allure of Bitcoin given its artificially created scarcity,” he stated. “But, as it is so new it has yet to develop a meaningful track record as a currency. Gold, on the other hand, is finite by nature and has proven itself as a reliable currency for thousands of years. While many competitor currencies have come and gone, only gold has proven itself as a long term store of wealth, and a hedge against uncertainty and real money.”

It’s interesting to note that other Wall Street giants have embraced an entirely different stance toward Bitcoin and cryptos recently. For example, last week, Bank of America not only launched its digital asset research with the publication of a report titled “Digital Assets Primer: Only the First Inning,” but also called the digital asset sector “too large to ignore,” citing a “$2tn+ market value and 200mn+ users.”

“We believe crypto-based digital assets could form an entirely new asset class. Bitcoin is important with a market value of ~$900bn, but the digital asset ecosystem is so much more,” according to the report.

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Bitcoin is hovering around $56,000 today, according to CoinMarketCap data.

Last updated: October 12, 2021