Favourites
-
On September 14, 2017, the Washington Post published some thoughts on cryptocurrency from Arthur Levitt, the longest-serving chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
In contrast with JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Levitt believes that cryptocurrency is “here to stay.”“It’s quite speculative,” said Levitt, who is unsure whether he would invest in bitcoin itself. The ex-chairman was well-known for his focus on investor protection.
“[Cryptocurrency] fluctuates for reasons that are hard to understand.” Nonetheless, he suggested, “I would consider investing in companies that use bitcoin, or trade in bitcoin.”Investing in the institutional infrastructure certainly seems like a wise strategy.
Rather than worry about the day to day vagaries of price, one might want to bet on the continued existence of cryptocurrencies.
Although Chinese exchanges are under fire at the moment, there are plenty of countries where legal cryptocurrency businesses are thriving (e.g., the United States, The Philippines, South Korea).
Looking to the future, Levitt said, “I don’t know whether it will be bitcoin or Ethereum, to name just two. But it’s here to stay because of the disparity between countries where a monetary system is robust and countries where there is virtually no monetary system.
This comes up as an alternative currency. ”Over the last decade, millions of people around the world have seemingly lost faith in their governments. So, In light of geopolitical and economic shifts, it’s almost unsurprising that private cryptocurrencies, which function without government direction, arose as an alternative.
ETHNewspreviously featured the potential for cryptocurrency in unstable economic and political situations.When citizens lose faith in the justice system, vigilantism may take root. In a sense, non-fiat cryptocurrency represents a parallel of financial vigilantism.
Levitt’s statements certainly align with this viewpoint, which emphasizes individual economic empowerment.In a previous interview with the Post, Levitt said of his SEC tenure,
“My overwhelming focus was on the importance of the individual investor over corporations, over market structure, over everything else.”
Private cryptocurrencies clearly grant power to people rather than governments. Only time will tell whether this economic experiment is sustainable in the long-run.MATTHEW DE SILVA
Matthew is a writer with a passion for emerging technology. Prior to joining ETHNews, he interned for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as well as the OECD. He graduated cum laude from Georgetown University where he studied international economics. In his spare time, Matthew loves playing basketball and listening to podcasts. He currently lives in Los Angeles. Matthew is a full-time staff writer for ETHNews.
Discover more news like this on Ethnews here:
https://www.ethnews.com/former-sec-chair-arthur-levitt-cryptocurrency-is-here-to-stay-
- 1
Admin Blockchain Company Task: Follow Ethereum to be awarded 10 Bonus BC Tokens on record as a user. Click on " About Free Tokens " at the top of this page to learn more.
-
-
It is a “fraud”, the JP Morgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, said this week. “It’s worse than tulip bulbs … it will be the emperor with no clothes”. He was talking about the internet cash system bitcoin.
It will eventually “blow up”, he said, it’s not a “real thing”. “It will be closed.” Any JP Morgan trader caught buying or selling bitcoins will be “fired in a second” – for “being stupid”, he added.
Bitcoin will always divide opinion – as a non-government system of money, inevitably so. Its most ardent supporters think it will eventually become the reserve currency of the globe. Its sternest critics think it will die a death. It is not hard to work out the side of the fence on which Dimon sits.
Bitcoin was devised in reaction to what happened in 2008 during the financial crisis: printing money, bailing out banks, suppressing rates. The idea was to create a system of money beyond the manipulative hands of government. Although JP Morgan was by no means the most leveraged of the banks, it still took bailout money, and, as its CEO, Dimon and bitcoin will inevitably be philosophically opposed.
His utter faith in the US dollar sounds rather like the boss of a major record label talking up CDs a year before the iPod was brought to market.That said, despite the fact he does not understand bitcoin – which, as the CEO of a major bank, he should – Dimon’s comments do bear some consideration.
Bitcoin is a fraud that will blow up, says JP Morgan boss
First, he says it’s a fraud. Actually, bitcoin is perhaps the most transparent system of money ever invented. Every transaction that has ever taken place, no matter how big or small, is recorded on a database, known as the blockchain, which is shared on hundreds of computers around the world and visible to all.
Every entry is permanent. The whole system is built, not on fraud, but on mathematical proof. Hence bitcoin aficionados will say, rather than “In God we trust” as you find on a dollar, but “In proof we trust”. However, there are many fraudulent operators at work in the bitcoin space.
Bitcoin is used for trading illegal goods; indeed, it has actually facilitated dark markets. One bitcoin exchange, Mt Gox, was hacked and had some 900,000 coins stolen, making it one of the greatest heists in history. Today fortunes are being raised in minutes via ICOs (initial coin offerings – the crypto equivalent of an IPO) for ventures that will not go anywhere beyond yachts and cocaine.
So there is something to what he says, even if the system itself is inherently anti-fraudulent.
Dimon declares that we will use the technology – blockchain technology – but that bitcoin will be shut down. That’s like saying we will use football pitches, but football players will be banned. One comes with the other. In any case, you can’t just shut bitcoin down. It’s a decentralised, distributed network. That’s the whole point of its design.
There is no central point of failure.Even so, he raises a good point when he says: “There will be no currency that gets around government controls.” If bitcoin becomes a threat to government tax revenue, the law will move in on the companies and individuals operating in the space.
But given the multibillion-dollar investment that has gone in, the US government would have the most almighty legal fight on its hands if it tries to make bitcoin illegal. Here’s the paradox: the bigger it gets, the bigger the threat it becomes, and the harder to shut down.
Dimon says he’ll sack traders who trade it. Last time he denounced bitcoin (he has previous) was late 2015 – Bitcoin’s value is now about 1,000% higher. Who’s the stupid one? Would Dimon really sack traders who netted him a 1,000% increase in less than two years? I’m not sure JP Morgan’s shareholders would approve.
Finally, Dimon declares bitcoin is a bubble. You need to define what a bubble is. Tulips were a bubble built on very little. The dotcom frenzy was a bubble in 2000, but the story was right: the internet did change the way we do things. Railways were a bubble in the 19th century: but rail changed the way we travel.
In both cases, the bubbles meant the infrastructure was built. Something similar is happening now. For sure the price has got crazy – but bitcoin has a long track record in seemingly crazy prices. When does it end? Perhaps at $100,000 as Dimon suggests; perhaps the bubble ended last week at $5,000. Nobody knows. The interest is vested. Those who own bitcoin say its value is going higher because they want it to go higher. Those who don’t, say it’s a bubble, perhaps because they’re jealous that other people are getting rich when they’re not.
As I always say: a bubble is a bull market in which you don’t have a position. If bitcoin was going to disappear, it would have disappeared by now. It’s here to stay, though I’d say it is unlikely to replace the primacy of the US dollar. Rather, we are headed into an age in which multiple currencies coexist, some private some public.
There are already more than a thousand cryptocurrencies, each designed for a different purpose. In a few years, just as we have different apps on our phones, so will we have different “wallets” with different currencies: one we might use for tipping (dogecoin), another for transactions we want kept private (monero, zcash) another for fast transactions and so on.
It’s rather Hayekian.• Dominic Frisby is the author of Bitcoin: the Future of Money?, published by Unbound
Discover more Opinions like this on the Guardian here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/15/jp-morgan-ceo-wrong-bitcoin-jamie-dimon-
Admin - 2 comments
- 5 likes
- Like
- Share
-
Jose Ojeda Portillo Adviser at Blockchain Company / Water Health Environment / Biosphere University << JP Morgan CEO, Dimon, utter faith in the US dollar sounds rather like the boss of a major record label talking up CDs a year before the iPod was brought to market. >> ;-)
-
Admin Blockchain Company Be on record to receive 100 bonus BC Tokens for completing the following task here: http://www.blockchaincompany.info/post/6548689/user-task-curate-your-blockchain-page-and-category-list-on-bc-am
-
-
Yesterday, Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, told a conference that he thinks the cryptocurrency bitcoin is a “fraud” and “not a real thing.
” He declared that the open-source protocol would eventually “close.” He even went so far as to warn his employees that if they were caught trading bitcoin, they would be fired “in a second” for their “stupidity.
”Dimon has been a cryptocurrency Cassandra for years. He first raised the alarm (as far as Quartz’s use of search engines can tell) about bitcoin in January 2014, observing that it was “a terrible store of value” that was mainly used for illicit purposes.
Over the years he issued several more warnings. Here they are:
While Dimon’s original critique was prescient—at the time a major rally was turning into a crash—his other warnings haven’t been as profitable. If you’d ignored his advice and bought bitcoin when he warned against it, you’d be in the money two out of three times.
Date
Jamie says…Bitcoin price…12 months laterJan 23, 2014“Bitcoin is a terrible store of value, ”$854-73% Nov 5, 2015 “Bitcoin will not survive, ”$38882% Jan 20, 2016 “Bitcoin is going nowhere, ”$419113%Sep 12, 2017 “Bitcoin is a fraud,”$4,148
As for Dimon’s latest admonition? Well, if he got it wrong and the cryptocurrency revolution sweeps banks like his away, at least one member of the Dimon family is well hedged: He told the conference that one of his daughters bought bitcoin and is sitting on tidy profits.
“Now she thinks she’s a genius,” he said.... discover more stories on Quartz here: https://qz.com/1076254/bitcoin-btc-price-mostly-rises-after-jamie-dimon-warns-against-it/-
Admin
- 2 comments
- 4 likes
- Like
- Share
-
Francisco Gimeno - BC Analyst It is real! And a part of the struggle which will come from those who don't want any paradigm change, or want a controlled change (controlled by them of course....) block chain means more decentralization and democratization. Do we really believe this kind of people want that?
-
Robert Haastrup-Timmi Executive at Blockchaincompany.info Jamie's bank JPMorgan only exists today because they were bailed out by the tax payer during the financial crises of 2008, a deep problem still not solved, but only stitched up for now. This story and others today about his awful comments, reminds me we must be living in a simulation... it can't be real!
-
-
The CEO of JP Morgan just called one of the best-performing currencies of the past decade “a fraud” and said he’d fire employees for trading it.
Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan’s CEO and one of the most prominent bank chiefs on the planet, believes bitcoin is doomed. At a gathering of investors hosted by Barclays in New York, Dimon referred to bitcoin as a “fraud” and told a group of professional investors what would happen to JP Morgan traders taking bitcoin action: “I’d fire them in a second.
For two reasons: it’s against our rules, and they’re stupid. And both are dangerous.”This statement is in stark contrast to a tsunami of interest by traditional financial institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, in the cryptospace this year. Even cybersecurity professionals like John McAfee, who is not a financial expert but knows a thing or two about computers and technology, are becoming true believers.
Moreover, the blockchain that powers bitcoin is predictable and has been running since 2009. Known issues with the cryptocurrency were addressed in the SegWit fork which created two versions of the coin. This isn’t the sign of a dying currency.
This is a sign that this ecosystem is self-regulating, solves its own problems, and is growing. Reportedly, Dimon further told the conference of investors that bitcoin “won’t end well,” that it’s “worse than tulip bulbs,” and that “someone’s going to get killed.” This is rather strong language coming from a man whose company was integral in forming a cryptocurrency business consortium.
So what do Dimon’s comments mean? Is he saying that it’s easier conduct illicit activity with cryptocurrency than cash? Is this just a case of a banker appeasing his buddies during a high powered lunch, or was Dimon actually trying to caution investors against cryptocurrencies? Jamie Dimon doesn’t make money off of bitcoin.
The majority of investors Dimon was addressing likely don’t either. They make their money off of fiat, so Dimon’s remarks could just be posturing in front of his contemporaries. Phrases like, “If you were in Venezuela or Ecuador or North Korea or a bunch of parts like that, or if you were a drug dealer, a murderer, stuff like that, you are better off doing it in bitcoin than U.S. dollars,” expose his naiveté.
Places like Venezuela use cryptocurrencies not because they are criminals, but because their fiat currencies have failed them alongside their governments. So in turn, those people adopt crypto because it is stable and reliable. If sanctions are placed on your country, again, cryptocurrencies are a viable alternative and don’t care if you are good or evil.
People care about politics and the differences between us. Crypto’s don’t. Bloomberg reports that Dimon further differentiated between bitcoin and blockchain technology, saying that blockchain could be useful. This is comforting to hear from Dimon, considering his company has actually developed its own blockchain.
In fact, JP Morgan’s blockchain lead had her own amusing reaction to the inflammatory statements:
Upon greater reflection, Dimon may realize that blockchain technology could not exist without cryptocurrencies like bitcoin or Ether. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are actually some of the best performing currencies ever.
So why does Dimon despise them?Simple. Dimon told the gathering of investors “someone’s going to get killed and then the government’s going to come down. You just saw in China, governments like to control their money supply.
”Maybe what Jamie Dimon is hoping for is that the government will come down on cryptocurrencies and save him – just like they did in 2008 when his company took $12billion in US taxpayer bailout money.
If bitcoin fails, how much will we have to pay?
Discover more stories like this on Ethnews here: https://www.ethnews.com/jp-morgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-decries-bitcoin-to-banker-buddies
-
Jose Ojeda Portillo Adviser at Blockchain Company / Water Health Environment / Biosphere University I like this sentence: << ”Maybe what Jamie Dimon is hoping for is that the government will come down on cryptocurrencies and save him – just like they did in 2008 when his company took $12billion in US taxpayer bailout money. >> :-)
-
-
Mainz · Full Time
brainbot technologies is a blockchain development studio, creating the core building blocks to scale the technology towards broad adoption of public blockchain systems. Our projects have been key to the core of Ethereum and continue to be crucial to the adoption and the current development roadmap of Ethereum.
Full-Stack Developer (Mainz)The Blockchain ecosystem is growing rapidly, generating excitement within Fortune 500 companies as well as small, highly determined tech start-ups alike. At brainbot, you can be part of both worlds and help to solve some of our world’s most pressing issues, while working in a creatively stimulating, albeit relaxed atmosphere.What you’ll be doing• Work on innovative and mind challenging projects
• Develop smart contracts & full stack decentralized applications
• Work in one of the most exciting spaces of applied Computer ScienceWho we are looking for•A few years of industry experience before joining brainbot.
Preferably with experience in distributed systems or database engineering, especially experience with blockchain technology and the Ethereum stack is a plus.
•Solid JS experience, other dialects and server-side JS experience (Node) is a plus
•Adequate experience with: Python, git, Linux, networking, experience with a
system programming language. Preferably you have some other open source
contributions or pet projects you can point to
•Work in small teams and iterate quickly to deliver creative solutions for our
client’s problems
•You take ownership of what you are working on, feel responsible for it and are
able to deliver without constant supervision
•You are a team player who can communicate fluently in spoken and written
English. German language proficiency is a plus
•You participate in code reviews and feel comfortable in an agile development process.
You are proactive and independent and have a optimistic, honest,
passionate, contrarian personality.What we can offerWe are a fast-growing international company headquartered in Mainz, Germany. Our projects are based on new and challenging technology in an exciting ecosystem and aim to have a significant impact on society.
Join our team of experts to work on the revolutionary technology of turing complete blockchains while enjoying the startup flair, flat hierarchies and a flexible working schedule.If you are interested, please contact us here or at [email protected]
APPLY HERE NOW
