Bitcoin is ‘a hyped-up fraud’

• JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon previously slammed Bitcoin as a “Ponzi scheme”.
• On Thursday, he told CNBC’s Squawk Box that crypto is a decentralised Ponzi scheme and that Bitcoin is just “hyped-up fraud.”
• Dimon says people have lost billions of dollars and believes regulators should have put a stop to crypto “a long time ago.”

Not for the first time, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has labelled cryptocurrencies worthless.

On Thursday, during an interview with CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box,’ the noted crypto sceptic again referred to Bitcoin as nothing but a “hyped-up fraud.” He condemned the benchmark crypto asset as a “pet rock”, expressing his disapproval by dismissing discussions over BTC and other cryptocurrencies as waste of time.

Dimon says crypto ‘doesn’t do anything’

According to the JPMorgan CEO Bitcoin is not a store of value, and he showed his scepticism further by suggesting that there could be more than 21 million bitcoins in the future.

“How do you know it is going to stop at 21 million? Maybe it’s going to get to 21 million, and Satoshi’s picture is going to come up and laugh at you all. And say ta-da!”

Dimon also went ahead to refer to crypto as a decentralised Ponzi scheme. According to him the hype around digital assets has been extraordinary, stating on the CNBC show:

“You guys, you’ve all seen the analysis on Tether, the analysis on all these things – the lack of disclosures and it’s outrageous. Regulators should have stopped all these a long time ago. People have lost billions of dollars. If you look at its low-income people, in some cases retirees.”

On what he had to say about the crypto industry following the collapse of FTX, the JPMorgan exec summed up his outlook by noting that crypto “doesn’t do anything.”

“It’s a pet rock,” he told the Squawk Box hosts, adding that he doesn’t care about Bitcoin.