JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has attracted criticism after saying the crypto industry is only fit for criminals and tax avoiders, while JPMorgan is the second-most fined bank.
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon caused a stir yesterday at Capitol Hill, lashing out at Bitcoin and the wider crypto industry.
When under question by Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) during a Senate Banking Committee hearing, Dimon said he has “always been deeply opposed to crypto, bitcoin, etc”, claiming the only “true” use case for it is “criminals, drug traffickers … money laundering, tax avoidance.”
“If I was the government, I’d close it down,” he said.
Dimon’s comments caused a stir within the crypto community, who were quick to observe that JPMorgan has made significant inroads into the crypto industry itself with its new crypto token, JPM Coin, which launched on private version of Ethereum. The coin caters toward institutional clients.
In October, JPMorgan also went live with a blockchain-based collateral settlement application called the Tokenised Collateral Network (TCN). The first transaction on the TCN involved asset giant BlackRock Inc, and Barclays Plc.
Read more: JPMorgan debuts tokenisation platform; BlackRock and Barclays involved in first transaction
In addition, JPMorgan recently debuted a new blockchain-powered programmable payments feature which automates cash movements near-instantaneously, again demonstrating its embrace of blockchain infrastructure.
Blockchain applications aside, JPMorgan is the second-most fined bank, having paid $39.3 billion in fines across 272 violations since 2000, according to Good Jobs First’s violation tracker.
VanEck strategy adviser Gabor Gurbacs commented that “banks should stay silent,” pointing out that since since 2000, regulators have fined banks over 7000 times, totalling files of $380 billion.
JPMorgan traders have also been investigated for market manipulation relating to various metals futures markets.
According to Reuters, JPMorgan agreed to pay $1 billion in fines in 2020 for “spoofing”, which is when traders place orders they intend to cancel in order to move prices to benefit their market positions.
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