Max Keiser Criticizes JPM Coin, Labels Jamie Dimon’s New Token a ‘Wet Noodle’ Compared to BTC

Earlier this month, JP Morgan announced that they would be launching their own cryptocurrency, the JPM coin, making them the first major financial institution to do so. This news was met with a lot of excitement from the industry as many see this as a move that will lead to a lot more adoption.

However, others have criticized it as simply a cash grab by the firm that will do nothing for actual adoption. One of the latest to criticize the move is Max Keiser who did so via twitter.

“JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon showed up to a street fight with #Bitcoin armed with a wet noodle called JPM Coin. The market took one look and started buying Bitcoin aggressively. Wall St. will never catch up to Bitcoin’s crypto dominance as it vies for global reserve status,” the tweeted.

There might be some truth to what Keiser is saying as this week, the value of bitcoin saw an increase from around $3,600 to around $4,200 before falling back down days after.

Others who have come forward to criticize the project are Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse who said that coin misses the point and likened it to launching an AOL after Netscape’s IPO.

Criticism also came from Nick Szabo who tweeted,

“In which way has the new alleged JPMorgan crypto coin anything to do with blockchain/crypto? It is private not public, permissioned not permissionless, based on trusted authorities verifying transaction not trustless, centralized not decentralized. Calling it crypto is a joke.”

Where is the lie?

While the JPM coin might have had a hand in the brief rise in the crypto market and might aid adoption long-term, it cannot be denied that this move looks very disingenuous, especially considering the history that the company has had with Cryptocurrency.

Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JP Morgan has previously made dismissive statements about cryptocurrency such as

“If we had a trader who traded bitcoin I’d fire him in a second for two reasons. One, it’s against our rules. Two, it’s stupid.” and also once said, “You can’t have a business where people are going to invent a currency out of thin air. It won’t end well… someone is going to get killed and then the government is going to come down on it.”

A few months before the JPM coin was announced, he seemed to backtrack on his previous statements, saying,

”I regret making them. The blockchain is real. You can have crypto Dollars and Yen and stuff like that. ICO’s you have to look at individually. 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.”