Has JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon Turned Into a Cryptocurrency Scammer?

Jamie Dimon

JPMorgan recently announced the launch of its own cryptocurrency, ecoin.

This came somewhat of a surprise since JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been a critic of cryptocurrencies.

Last August at the  Aspen Institute’s 25th Annual Summer Celebration Gala, he called cryptocurrencies a “scam” and also said he had “no interest” in the world’s largest digital currency, Bitcoin.

So what gives? Is Dimon now a self-hating crypto man?

Yes and no.

The bank is getting involved in crypto but in a different, mysterious way.

Cryptocurrency skeptic Nouriel Roubini, who has pointed out a lot of valid problems with cryptocurrencies, had this to say about Dimon's entry in the field:

In which way has the new alleged JPMorgan crypto coin anything to do with blockchain/crypto? It is private not public, permissioned not permissionless, based on trusted authorities verifying transaction not trustless, centralized not decentralized. Calling it crypto is a joke.

So in other words, JPMorgan is using cryptography but that is as far as it gets compared to cryptocurrencies that are public, permissionless and decentralized. Jamie's ecoin is none of these.

So if he is running a "scam," it's on the people who think he just created his own run-of-the-mill cryptocurrency. He has not. He probably still hates that stuff.

-RW