“It’s going to replace certain systems that we all use that are clunky or late or not 24/7,” Dimon said, citing the short term loans known as intraday repos as an example. But the noted crypto curmudgeon—who famously said in 2017 he’d “fire in a second” any JPMorgan employee trading Bitcoin—also made clear he views the technology as limited.
“It’s not the only thing that can fix it, and sometimes it’s a solution looking for a problem,” Dimon stated, arguing that blockchain won’t “replace everything.”
When asked about Bitcoin, he declined to comment about a subject that has become a lightning rod for one of the world’s most scrutinized CEOs. “Then that’s all I’m going to read about in the headlines,” Dimon joked. “Then I get death threats and sh*t like that.”
Created by the shadowy figure Satoshi Nakamoto in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Bitcoin began as a reaction against the growing power of Wall Street and big banks. But the sector has since expanded, and financial institutions have come to integrate distributed ledger technology in various operations. That includes JPMorgan, which is using its own private, permissioned blockchain, Kinexys, to facilitate money movement within its client base as well as developing its own internal token.
