‘If I was the government, I’d close it down’ — Chase CEO on crypto

JPMorgan Chase chair and CEO Jamie Dimon advised a number of United States lawmakers that if he had the authority in authorities, he would attempt to shut down crypto.

In a Dec. 6 listening to of the Senate Banking Committee on oversight of Wall Avenue Companies, Dimon responded to questioning from Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who claimed North Korea had funded a lot of its missile program utilizing “proceeds of crypto crime” along with funding Hamas. The JPMorgan Chase CEO mentioned he had “at all times been deeply against crypto” and related digital property with “criminals” and “drug traffickers” along with tax avoidance.

“If I used to be the federal government, I would shut it down,” mentioned Dimon.

The JPMorgan Chase CEO testified earlier than the Senate committee alongside CEOs of Wells Fargo, Financial institution of America, Citigroup, BNY Mellon, Goldman Sachs, State Avenue and Morgan Stanley. Dimon has beforehand referred to cryptocurrencies as “decentralized Ponzi schemes” and Bitcoin (BTC) as a “fraud.”

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Warren questioned the opposite CEOs on whether or not crypto corporations ought to be topic to the identical Anti-Cash Laundering (AML) guidelines U.S. banks are obligated to uphold — to which all responded within the affimative. In an announcement to Cointelegraph, a spokesperson for the crypto education-focused group CEDAR Innovation Basis mentioned Warren’s claims revealed “a lack of awareness of blockchain know-how.”

“It’s deceptive to assert that crypto facilitates illicit finance any extra so than conventional fiat forex,” mentioned CEDAR. “The statements by Senator Warren and the financial institution CEOs are a direct recognition of the promise of crypto, decentralized finance, and blockchain know-how as a direct menace to the standard monetary system.”

The Massachusetts senator has been a vocal opponent of crypto within the U.S. authorities, typically linking crypto transactions to terrorism and pushing for laws geared toward reducing down on the illicit use of digital property. Within the wake of the Oct. 7 assault by Hamas on Israel, many U.S. lawmakers have supported Warren’s efforts to lift consideration to the position of crypto in financing terrorism.

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