JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon compares crypto-currencies to pets and calls for more regulation

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon believes that crypto-currencies are like pet rocks. The executive also believes that regulation should be increased, stating, “Maybe the regulators hitting banks should focus a little more on crypto.“

Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase compares crypto to pet rocks.

JPMorgan Chase investment bank chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon discussed crypto and its regulation following the collapse of crypto-currency exchange FTX in an interview with CNBC on Tuesday.

He was asked if the FTX collapse is contained and doesn’t matter or if he thinks it’s a symbol of something bigger going on in the economy. The JPMorgan boss replied:

Crypto is a sideshow, okay, and you spend too much time on it. I’ve been perfectly clear that crypto currencies are like rocks, and people are making a big deal about them.

The pet rocks are just rocks in personalized cardboard boxes, marketed as live rocks in 1975. Over a million pet rocks were sold for $4 each and the fad lasted about six months.

Commenting on U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s statement that the FTX collapse was “a Lehman moment within the crypto“, the managing director of JPMorgan opined, “I don’t think she meant a Lehman moment … Crypto is worth a trillion dollars.“

Jamie Dimon also believes that the regulation of crypto should be strengthened. “The other thing that the American public should look at … if you look at all the buying and selling, so if bitcoin is worth like less than a trillion dollars today, and we’re not even sure that’s a real market by the way, that 20 to 30 billion a year ransomware that we know of, 20 to 30 billion exchange costs that we know of, a lot of AML anti-terrorism funding, tax evasion, sex trafficking, in what why we allow this kind of stuff to take place“, he continued, pointing out:

I think, you know, regulators going after banks should maybe focus a little bit more on crypto-currencies.

While downplaying the importance of crypto-currencies, Jamie Dimon reaffirmed his faith in blockchain technology, stating:

This does not mean that blockchain is not real. It doesn’t mean that smart contracts won’t be real or Web 3.0, but crypto-currencies that don’t do anything, I don’t understand why people spend time on them.

Jamie Dimon has long been a critic of bitcoin and crypto-currencies. In September, he told Congress that crypto-currencies like bitcoin are “decentralized Ponzi schemes“. He has previously stated that bitcoin is worthless and warned people to be cautious when investing in crypto-currencies citing that they have no intrinsic value. In May last year, he personally advised investors to “stay away” of crypto-currencies. Although Jamie Dimon is skeptical of crypto-currencies, his investment bank, JPMorgan, has offered a number of crypto-currency investments to its clients.