JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon expressed his support for stablecoins, one of the fastest-growing areas of the cryptocurrency world.
“I believe in stablecoins and blockchain, but I personally don’t believe in Bitcoin,” Dimon said in an interview with CNBC.
Dimon also announced that JPMorgan Chase will have its own stablecoin in the future. Noting that stablecoins are digital assets pegged to traditional assets like the US dollar, Dimon said, “I believe stablecoins can do some things that traditional cash can’t.” However, he added that this step was taken at the request of customers, not JPMorgan: “It’s not about what JPMorgan wants, it’s about what customers want.”
Dimon has long distinguished between blockchain technology and Bitcoin. He has been known for his criticism of Bitcoin while calling it a useful technology. However, this time, his anti-Bitcoin statements have been more subdued than in the past.
Dimon, who said in 2017 that he would lay off employees who traded with Bitcoin, described Bitcoin as a “hyped-up scam,” a “pet rock,” and a “waste of time” in 2023. However, that same year, he acknowledged that blockchain technology could be used in banking transactions.
“Blockchain is an information transfer system. We’ve used it for nighttime repo transactions, intraday repo transactions, and money transfers. We believe this technology infrastructure is usable,” Dimon said, also describing the bank’s technological breakthroughs.
