Jamie Dimon Is Lying About Bitcoin: Caitlin Long

When it comes to figures of finance like JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon on Bitcoin, it’s beneficial to look beyond the executive’s high-profile mudslinging and study the firm’s actual moves, according to Custodia Bank Founder and CEO Caitlin Long.

Discussing Bitcoin on CNBC from Davos, Switzerland, Dimon referred to crypto’s top coin as “s—” on Wednesday. Assuring the hosts of “Squawk Box” that it was the last time he’d personally opine on the asset, Dimon reaffirmed his position that owning Bitcoin is akin to possessing a pet rock because the cryptocurrency allegedly “does nothing.”

“Watch what they do, not what they say,” Long told Coinage in a Wednesday interview. “He called it a pet rock a year ago, and now he's graduated to an expletive. That tells you he's getting flustered.”

Ironically, Dimon continues to cast shade on Bitcoin’s nearly $1 trillion market cap as JPMorgan falls in line as an authorized participant for BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin ETF, Long pointed out. The special status allows JPMorgan to play a role in the creation and redemption of the ETF’s shares, keeping the price of BlackRock’s product aligned with Bitcoin’s. Whether it's programmable payments with JPM Coin or price predictions, the bank has delved into crypto in other ways too.

While BlackRock CEO Larry Fink recently upheld Bitcoin as a novel asset — saying it could be a long-term store of value for people worried about governments devaluing their respective currencies — Long said some people are so embedded in the world of traditional finance that they are incapable of having an open mind toward Bitcoin or the concept of money.

“A lot of TradFi people, they are so in their tunnel vision and groupthink that they cannot see that there's a different way of thinking about the world,” she said. “This has opened a huge fissure, and [Bitcoin is] a tiny market in the grand scheme of things.”

The widest ideological cleft: Long said that people in Dimon’s “camp” often think that money is what the government says it is, while others think that money can arise “spontaneously” through human interaction — from cowrie shells to gold. Additionally, Long said that Bitcoin’s critics often argue that the digital asset itself lacks any intrinsic value, calling those two beliefs contradictory.

Another area of contention boils down to the definition of inflation, Long said. While Bitcoiners often believe inflation is an increase in the supply of money, “TradFi folks” will point to economic indicators like the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index.

“They say money is only what the government says it is, and then they say every asset has to have intrinsic value,” she said. “Fiat currency has no intrinsic value.”