‘Worthless’ Bitcoin a tool for criminals – JPMorgan boss

Jamie Dimon has a long history of criticizing digital currencies

Cryptocurrencies facilitate illegal activities such as money laundering, according to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, who has insisted that digital assets should be banned.

Dimon once again attacked the top cryptocurrency this week, calling Bitcoin “worthless” and saying he still isn’t buying into the hype surrounding the crypto.

“I've always said that Bitcoin doesn't have value,” the Wall Street heavyweight told Fox Business Network on Tuesday. “The actual use cases are sex trafficking, tax avoidance, money laundering, terrorism financing. It's not just people buying and selling Bitcoin,” he claimed.

Dimon and several other industry chiefs, including Bank of America’s Brian Moynihan, have said the crypto market must follow the same anti-money-laundering rules as traditional financial institutions.

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A series of fake tweets from the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s X account this week about the much-awaited Bitcoin exchange-traded fund (ETF) approval decision sent the price of the crypto soaring above $47,000. It later fell as low as $45,400 after the tweets turned out to be fake.

The crypto industry has suffered a slew of scandals recently, starting with the collapse of the FTX crypto exchange in November 2022. This placed the sector under intense scrutiny from US lawmakers and resulted in the conviction of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

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In November 2023, another major crypto exchange, Binance, was fined $4.3 billion for various violations, ranging from money laundering to bank fraud.

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