Crypto Industry Slams “Hypocrite” JPMorgan CEO for Negative Speech on Crypto

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has received backlash from the crypto community after claiming he would shut down Bitcoin and crypto if he were the U.S. government.

In a congressional hearing on Wednesday, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon criticized the crypto industry. According to the banking mogul, there is no “true use case” for cryptocurrencies except for negative vices such as money laundering, terrorism financing, and drug trafficking.

The JPMorgan CEO added that he would “close down” crypto if he were the government, a sentiment that did not go down well with prominent voices in the cryptocurrency industry. Crypto-focused lawyer John Deaton was among those to hit back, labeling Jamie Dimon a “hypocrite” and “criminal.”

Deaton pointed to publicly available records showing that the government has imposed over $35 billion in fines on JPMorgan. The fines are largely related to illegal and fraudulent activities such as market manipulation, trading scandals, illicit credit card offerings, and currency manipulation.

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As John Deaton pointed out, none of the crimes for which the U.S. government has fined JPMorgan are linked to using crypto. Hence, any monetary solution, including crypto, is susceptible to being used by bad actors.

Crypto Industry Reacts to JPMorgan CEO

Beyond John Deaton, key thought entrepreneurs and thought leaders in the cryptocurrency industry also responded to Jamie Dimon’s negative speech. 

Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko used an analogy to describe the JPMorgan CEO comments, which recommended shutting down a technology that competes with traditional banking. The Solana co-founder said it would be the same as Google wanting to shut down AI startup OpenAI, which has built ChatGPT as a competition.

Breaking: Google would shut down OpenAI if it were the government https://t.co/fz4H8dmhfZ

— toly 🇺🇸 (@aeyakovenko) December 6, 2023

LinksDAO founder Mike Dudas noted that Dimon’s comments highlight the need for “permissionless money on public blockchains,” especially coming a few months after multiple U.S. bank failures. He noted that current realities emphasize a clear need for these solutions.

Meanwhile, the JPMorgan CEO’s comments come despite the bank’s ongoing blockchain development efforts. JPMorgan is known to have in-house distributed ledger technology for institutional client payments and has also been reported to be building blockchain-based solutions for the tech giant Siemens.