JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon says bitcoin ‘is a fraud’, ‘worse than tulips’, and destined to ‘blow up’

Bitcoin “is a fraud” and will blow up, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co, said on Tuesday.

Speaking at an investor conference in New York, Dimon said, “The currency isn’t going to work. You can’t have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart.”

Dimon said that if any JPMorgan traders were trading the cryptocurrency, “I would fire them in a second, for two reasons: It is against our rules and they are stupid, and both are dangerous.”

Dimon’s comments come as the bitcoin, a virtual currency not backed by any government, has more than quadrupled in value since December to more than US$4,100.

Bitcoin is a digital currency that enables individuals to transfer value to each other and pay for goods and services bypassing banks and the mainstream financial system.

Dimon said that if the supply were actually limited to 21 million bitcoin, it might be useful to drug dealers and murderers and people in countries with exceptionally unstable currencies.