Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co. JPM, has not shied away from exhibiting his disdain for Bitcoin BTC/USD and has used public platforms to target the leading cryptocurrency over the years.
What happened: One of many such attacks came at the Institute of International Finance event (IIF) in October 2021, during which Dimon questioned the very foundations of Bitcoin technology — its hard cap of 21 million.
"I’ll just challenge the group to one other thing: how do you know it ends at 21 million? You all read the algorithms? You guys all believe that? I don’t know, I’ve always been a skeptic of stuff like that," Dimon said.
The brazen attack riled up the cryptocurrency community on social platforms, though many still tried to address his grievances.
Well-known Bitcoin technologist Jameson Lopp posted a screenshot from Bitcoin source code on X, with the caption, "Bruh it’s like 5 lines of code."
It's worth mentioning that the code doesn't explicitly mention the hard cap. Rather, it is derived by summing all coins the code allows to be brought into circulation over time.
However, even factual responses appeared to have little effect, as Dimon repeated his concerns about the supply limit earlier in January.
“I think there’s a good chance, when we get to that 20 million Bitcoins… Satashi [sic] is going to come on there, laugh hysterically, go quiet, and all Bitcoins [are] going to be erased. How the hell [do] you know it's going to stop at 21?”
Why It Matters: Dimon’s criticism of Bitcoin has continued unabated, and he went so far as to ask for a shutdown of the industry during a Congressional testimony in December last year.
He has expressed his displeasure about having to discuss anything about Bitcoin, with an emphatic, “I don’t care” remark at the aforementioned IIF event.
Interestingly, JPMorgan reported holding $42,000 worth of shares of Grayscale Bitcoin Trust GBTC, according to the latest 13F filing with the SEC.
Price Action: At the time of writing, Bitcoin was exchanging hands at $68,612.40, up 0.34% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro. Shares of JPMorgan closed 0.45% lower at $225.43 on Friday.
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