Less than four months after Jamie Dimon lashed out at bitcoin, warning that it was would "eventually blow up" because it was "worse than tulip bulbs" and that "any trader trading bitcoin" will be "fired for being stupid", the JPMorgan CEO said he "regrets" his infamous criticism of bitcoin, in which he called the cryptocurrency a "fraud."
In an interview with FOX Business' Maria Bartiromo, Dimon repented, softening the comments he made in a September banking conference, saying "I regret making them."
While Dimon said that he personally is still "not interested in the subject at all" he conceded that blockchain "is real." Dimon also softened his tone on initial coin offerings, saying that ICOs need to be reviewed “individually”.
"The blockchain is real. You can have crypto yen and dollars and stuff like that. ICO's you have to look at individually", Dimon told Bartiromo.
"The bitcoin to me was always what the governments are gonna feel about bitcoin as it gets really big, and I just have a different opinion than other people. I'm not interested that much in the subject at all."
Until today's recantation, Dimon was one of the highest-profile bitcoin skeptics on Wall Street. His remarks in September were met with anger from many in the cryptocurrencies community, but also echoed by other top executives, including Larry Fink, chairman and chief executive of BlackRock.
Since then, the acceptance of bitcoin has moved to the institutional arena with both the cboe and CME launching bitcoin futures, while Goldman is preparing a cryptocurrency trading desk. It was only a matter of time before Dimon realized all the potential lost revenue, and rushed back in to avoid losing even more market share.
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