Jamie Dimon mocks crypto, says it’s a ‘pet rock’

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon voiced his dislike of cryptocurrency on Thursday.

Bitcoin itself, Dimon told CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” is a “hyped-up fraud.” He also called it a “pet rock” during the interview. 

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When asked about BlackRock and other investment firms investing in blockchain, he clarified “that’s different.”

“Blockchain is a technology ledger system that we use to move information,” he explained. “We’ve used it to do overnight repo, intraday repo. We’ve used it to move money.”

Dimon said blockchain was a “technology ledger that we think will be deployable.”

He was “not surprised at all” by what happened to the now-collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, he also told CNBC. 

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FTX, once valued at $32 billion, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November. Founder Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down from the CEO role the same day the exchange filed and has since been hit with multiple criminal charges from the Southern District of New York and the Securities and Exchange Commission. He has pleaded not guilty to them. 

“I called it a decentralized Ponzi scheme,” Dimon said of FTX. “The hype around this thing has been extraordinary.”

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He said regulators “should have stopped this a long time ago,” noting people “have lost billions of dollars.”

“Crypto itself doesn’t do anything,” he also reiterated. “It’s a pet rock.”