‘They’ll Close It Down.’ Jamie Dimon’s Ruthlessly Realistic Bitcoin Call

On Tuesday, Jamie Dimon had some rather incendiary things to say about Bitcoin.

Specifically, he said the following:

  • DIMON: WOULD FIRE ANY TRADER TRADING BITCOIN FOR BEING STUPID
  • DIMON: BITCOIN `WON’T END WELL’
  • DIMON: BITCOIN IS `WORSE THAN TULIP BULBS’
  • DIMON: BITCOIN WILL EVENTUALLY BLOW UP: `IT’S A FRAUD

You can read our initial post on that here which includes some new commentary from Bloomberg’s Cameron Crise that’s pretty interesting to the extent it’s an accurate portrayal of the costs associated with the proliferation of crypto.

Regular readers (and anyone who subjects themselves to my Twitter feed) know that I think Bitcoin is probably going to zero. And my rationale for asserting that is simple.

Governments simply won’t put up with this forever. Once it gets annoying enough (read: once it becomes a real challenge to monetary authorities), they’ll simply find an excuse to heavily regulate it or, more likely, do away with it altogether. It’s just that simple.

And don’t tell me they can’t do it. They can. Just look at what’s happening in China.

And don’t tell me about how, in the end, the fact that it’s a great idea will save it. No it won’t. History is replete with examples of government intentionally killing good ideas – especially ones that threaten the existing order.

It’s also critical to understand that there’s a veritable laundry list of excuses governments will be able to trot out to justify heavy-handed intervention. They’ll cite flash crashes, they’ll cite the possibility it can be used for illegal transactions, they’ll cite a lack of investor protections, and on, and on, and on.

Throw in the fact that Bitcoin is a giant bubble, and you’ve got what is perhaps the most compelling case imaginable for thinking that eventually, this is going to zero. And when I say “zero” I mean that kind of “zero” where something ceases to exist altogether.

Now sure, it might go to $500,000 first (and let’s hope it does so we don’t have to watch John McAfee pull a Steve Bannon on live television), but eventually this thing will be relegated to the dustbin of bubble history.

Bubbles

So with that as the context, we present more from Dimon who, in a conversation Tuesday afternoon with Andrew Ross Sorkin, talked more about Bitcoin and said precisely what we’ve been saying since the first day this site was live. Namely that the government is going to shut this whole thing down as soon as something goes wrong – and maybe even before that.

Enjoy…

Jamie Dimon: Governments look at bitcoin as a novelty from CNBC.

 

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7 thoughts on “‘They’ll Close It Down.’ Jamie Dimon’s Ruthlessly Realistic Bitcoin Call

  1. Dimon is both a quantitatively illiterate idiot, and a symbol of everything that is wrong with this society. And his industry is threatened by crypto. Look at what RIPPLE is designed to do to the SWIFT system, and you get the drift. When your FED can’t specify what money is and you get immense transaction inefficiency throughout the economy, what is to be expected? In China, a union card at Maccau gets capital out as well as anything. The Chinese have bigger problems than crypto, much bigger.

  2. this is simple.
    you cant control the dark net (second layer)under).
    the more gov tax–the stronger it gets.
    DM/AM markets are going to fail.
    good luck all.

  3. Seems there are some strong opinions by those with money in the bitcoin game.

    The other day the 20 something in front of Walmart was telling his buddy on the phone about how you have to buy Bitcoin anytime it comes down. 5 minutes later he is talking about the bar fight he was in….

    I don’t think he cared about the dark net, or blockchain or if the SWIFT water was turning in to a RIPPLE ….. he was speculating.

    1. There are strong opinions on both sides. Those who bought it obviously want returns. Those who didn’t and consider themselves experts abhor the idea that they didn’t see the next big thing and will lose face if it succeeds.

      Personally I see it as extremely risky but my investments are small. I see the potential and I see the risks. I saw the potential at $4 but could not for the life of me figure out how to buy any. When it collapsed after MT GOX I studied the history and saw the collapse in value was tied to a misunderstanding which conflated trusting a random person to hold your money and the technology itself. One is obviously a bad idea. Systems that made Crypto more user friendly came out and I instantly bought in at around $200.

      Maybe governments ban it, maybe they confiscate gold and guns, maybe they ban selling stocks or bonds, maybe they build a massive intelligence system to monitor and record the actions of every living person on earth and turn the planet into a massive prison. I don’t see how BTFD is any safer than BTC. The world’s an unpredictable place.

  4. Government will indeed likely fight this (and other freedoms) and ultimately lose, but not before first turning against its own people and screwing them (save the parasites in the broader public sector).

    Those governments, Dimon and the banksters will be on the wrong side of history.

    In contrast, numerous other governments, particularly in the East, are embracing this technology and crypto.

    Having a front porch view of China from Singapore and Hong Kong, I see the Chinese situation is again rather misrepresented by the western MSM tools who parrot nonsense from their various puppet masters. A moratorium on new coins in China is far different than shutting down bitcoin, which continues to be used fine. Meanwhile, marrying the truly revolutionary new blockchain-based Aadhaar system (India Stack) architecture with crypto will be uber-revolutionary and the way of the future. Watch and learn, padres, or be left behind in the financial middle ages

  5. And yes bitcoin is indeed a bubble but that’s a different issue. Internet 1.0 was also a bubble which wiped out most investors, but the internet nevertheless flourished and internet 2.0 made billionaires of some in its second wave.

  6. Govts banned drugs. Look what happen to prices of those items. A govt ban or two should be a good thing…wake people the hell up about what’s been going on.

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