JPMorgan & Chase (NYSE:JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon is among the financial executives who have spoken out strongly against the cryptocurrency sector over the years.
While Dimon’s attitude has changed somewhat with JPMorgan now owning Bitcoin through ETFs, his comments about the death of the cryptocurrency sector live on.
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What happened: Dimon probably made some enemies in the cryptocurrency sector with his statements seven years ago.
During his speech at the Barclays Global Financial Services Conference on September 17, 2017, Dimon did not hold back in his criticism of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and the cryptocurrency sector.
Dimon called Bitcoin “stupid” and “dangerous” and even went so far as to label the leading cryptocurrency as fraud. The JPMorgan executive also said that if he caught any of his company’s employees buying or selling Bitcoin, he would “fire them in a second.”
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“It’s against our rules, and they’re stupid. And both are dangerous,” Dimon said at the time, as reported by Bloomberg.
During his speech, Dimon predicted that Bitcoin would collapse, comparing its rising valuations to the Tulip Mania in the Netherlands in the 17th century, when the price of flower bulbs reached new highs and then collapsed.
“You can’t have a business where people can come up with a coin out of thin air and think the people who buy it are really smart. It’s worse than tulip bulbs.”
Dimon predicted at the time that it would not end well for investors.
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“It’s going to blow up, China just kicked them out, someone’s going to lose money somewhere else. Don’t ask me to go short, it might be $20,000 before this happens, but eventually it’s going to blow up.”
Dimon was right when he said Bitcoin would reach $20,000, but has so far been wrong about the explosion of the leading cryptocurrency.
Bitcoin traded as high as $4,344.65 on September 12, 2017, the day of Dimon’s comments. An investor could have bought 0.2302 BTC that day with $1,000.
Fast forward to today, and the $1,000 investment in what Dimon said was a fraud and something that would become worthless is worth $14,574.14. This represents a hypothetical return of +1,357.41% over the past seven years.
