From CryptoPotato · By Jordan Lyanchev
Alongside the rest of the market, shares of JPMorgan Chase tanked at the end of the previous week, but there’s more to the story. JPM’s decline also came after reports emerged that Senate Democrats are preparing a fresh investigation into the banking behemoth’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Although there’s no real connection with Bitcoin, we decided to still cover this and highlight the awkwardness, as JPM’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, has spent years bashing the crypto industry.
JPMorgan Faces New Epstein Scrutiny
CNBC reported after the Blue-nami in the US midterms that Democratic staff on the Senate Finance Committee plan to examine how senior JPM executives handled Epstein as they take control of Congress early next year. Mary Erdoes, CEO of the bank’s Asset & Wealth Management Division, is expected to be among the high-profile names in the investigations.
“The US government had damning information about Epstein’s crimes that it failed to share with us or other banks. We regret any association we had with him, but we did not help him commit his crimes,” commented a spokesperson from the bank.
The market reaction was immediate as JPM shares tanked by over 4% to under $340 on Thursday. The sell-off essentially erased the stock’s post-midterm rally.
Although the bank continues to deny any wrongdoing, it previously agreed to pay $365 million in settlements related to Epstein.
The Irony
We admit there’s no official confirmation that JPM has done anything wrong, and we don’t expect it to come to light if it did, because it’s one of the world’s largest banks. And we know how banks are treated in almost any situation (recall the 2008 banking crisis and the subsequent lack of any real consequences). Nevertheless, the irony is still worth pointing out.
JPM’s long-serving CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been bashing BTC for years. He has called it a “fraud,” “worthless,” a “pet rock,” and a “decentralized Ponzi scheme.” All bad and, in some cases, illegal names. He also advised investors to stay away from crypto and told lawmakers that if he were running the US government, he would “close it down.”
The hypocrisy is glaring when we look at what the bank has done lately. It now lets institutional clients use BTC and ETH as collateral; it supports crypto-related services; it participated in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF infrastructure; and it recently projected that bitcoin could outperform US large-cap stocks and gold over the next 10-15 years.
But there’s another contrast. Bitcoin has no CEO, board of directors, wealth-management division, or customer relationship with Jeffrey Epstein – or anyone else, for that matter. The protocol itself cannot make a questionable client decision, hide internal correspondence, or become subject to congressional scrutiny over corporate conduct.