Bitcoin is for drug dealers and murderers, says JPMorgan CEO

Following recent measures by the Chinese government to close bitcoin exchanges, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said at a bank investor conference in New York that cryptocurrency is merely a “fraud” and not “a real thing,” writes CNBC.

Dimon compared the craze around bitcoin with the Dutch tulip mania of the Golden Age, when prices went up outrageously only to drastically plunge later.

“The currency isn”t going to work. You can”t have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart,” Dimon said.

“If you were in Venezuela or Ecuador or North Korea or a bunch of parts like that, or if you were a drug dealer, a murderer, stuff like that, you are better off doing it in bitcoin than US dollars. So there may be a market for that, but it”d be a limited market.”

Although Dimon said he would fire any JPMorgan trader involved in cryptocurrency, the company is allegedly engaged in a blockchain project in an attempt to reduce trading costs.

Since it was released by an unknown author calling himself Satoshi Nakamoto in 2009, digital currency quickly gained traction among tech enthusiasts. Because transactions don”t require an intermediary, Bitcoin turned into the preferred digital payment system on the dark web, raising concern among financial institutions that it aids money laundering and online crime activities.