Jamie Dimon, the CEO of the largest U.S. bank, took a jab to Bitcoin bulls on Monday, alleging that the cryptocurrency may not be limited in quantity.
How does the group decide for one other thing: how do you know it ends at 21 million? What algorithm are you reading on? I don't know, I've always been a skeptic of stuff like that, said the JPMorgan Chase JPM CEO in an International Finance event on Oct. 11.
The price of bitcoin at the time was about $57,000 as of Tuesday.
Dimon questioned the key foundation of bitcoin: a BTC of 21 million that gives the asset the appeal for a controlled supply.
In the bitcoin code, however, the maximum number of coins is 21 million. In theory, the open source nature of the Bitcoin code would allow changes to that cap, but it would require sign off from a large share of Bitcoin nodes that host and run the software.
Dimon expressed that he still feels bitcoin is worthless, but elaborated that his opinions on cryptocurrency do not determine JPMorgan Chase s approach to offering crypto products. The CEO said that the bank can offer clients some legitimate access to the crypto space if they want, although the bank isn't offering custody services The CEO s remarks echo his comments from May when he compared the rising asset class with banking weed.
That does not mean the clients don't want it, Dimon told Congress on May 27. What goes back to how run a business? I don't smoke marijuana but if you make it legal, I will not stop our people from banksing it. However, the bank is not offering crypto custody at the moment and is toying around with blockchain technologies through its Onyx business. The bank is building up a network that it started using to trade smart contracts with other banks.
Brian Cheung is a reporter covering banking and Fed for Yahoo Finance. You can follow him on Twitter bcheungz.