Dimon, who is CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase, made the pronouncements during an appearance on CNBC this Wednesday.
According to Barron’s, he was on the channel during the Davos conference, talking with hosts Andrew Ross Sorkin, Joe Kernen and Becky Quick. Although Dimon was dismissive about the future prospects of cryptocurrency Bitcoin, he was positive on the digital ledger technology known as either “The Blockchain” or “blockchain.”
Dimon dismisses bitcoin during CNBC appearance
Ross-Sorkin asked Dimon what he thought about virtual currency bitcoin, and was met with a firmly dismissive answer. “Bitcoin the currency is going nowhere. There is nothing behind it, and if it was big the governments would stop it,” said Dimon.
The J.P. Morgan Chase chief has been consistent in his opinion, and has been vocal on the matter since last year.
“Virtual currency, where it’s called a bitcoin vs. a U.S. dollar, that’s going to be stopped,” said Dimon in November 2015. “No government will ever support a virtual currency that goes around borders and doesn’t have the same controls. It’s not going to happen.”
J.P. Morgan Chase chief says Blockchain could have a bright future
On the other hand Dimon believes that blockchain could be adopted for multiple applications in banking and commerce.
“The blockchain is a technology which we’ve been studying, and yes it’s real, it can probably reduce the cost of doing business. If it proves to be cheap and secure, it would be adopted for a whole bunch of stuff,” he said.
Excitement is building over the potential uses for blockchain, and a Euromoney survey revealed that 55% of respondents believe that the banking system will be fundamentally changed by the technology.
Dimon was later asked about Apple’s Apple Pay system and was fairly positive in his outlook. He claimed that the payment system and its competitors are “going to be adopted more, but only so many people have NFC.”
NFC refers to the wireless transfer technology that lies behind payment systems such as Apple Pay and Alphabet’s Android Pay, and is only found in later generation smartphones.
“I think you’ll see more of this stuff get used,” he concluded.
Meanwhile, big banks are testing blockchain Reuters reports today:
Eleven major banks, including Barclays, UBS and HSBC, said on Wednesday they had tested a system that could make trading much faster and cheaper, using the technology that underpins crypto-currency bitcoin.
The banks are part of a consortium of 42 major lenders, brought together last year by New York-based software company R3 to work on ways blockchain technology could be used in financial markets – the first time so many have collaborated on using such systems.
A blockchain is a huge, decentralized ledger of every bitcoin transaction, verified and shared by a global computer network, that can also be used to secure and validate any exchange of data, including real assets, such as commodities or currencies.
