Last week, Jamie Dimon (CEO of JP Morgan) brought a flood of criticism on himself after calling Bitcoin a fraud. He lost the respect of many crypto enthusiasts, including mine by stating things that are simply not true and by feeding to the FUD in the market. After Jamie did his say at a banking industry conference, the price of Bitcoin went down quite dramatically and dipped below $3000, shedding over a grant per BTC in less than 24 hours.
However, the market quickly recovered and until last weekend remained closed to $3800. Interestingly though, it became apparent that JP Morgan was buying BTC at the low point of the day on the 15th of September. This, even though Jamie publicly stated he would fire any trader trading BTC for being 'dumb' and 'dangerous'. Clearly a lie as I doubt these traders are fired after making a ton of money. Whether it was for clients or directly for them selves doesn't matter to me. Surely if you consider something a fraud, you do not offer it to your clients?
Many people see his actions for what they truly are. A way to make the market dip, so his traders and his friends can buy in cheap, while other investors were harmed by his actions. Sure the term HOLD (or rather HODL) is there for a reason, you don't sell your coins at a loss, but still people got scared and sold. And they suffered. And larger whales profited.
Obviously this type of action wouldn't normally have such an effect on the the traditional market for 2 main reasons:
Though the market is not mature yet, there is still a chance that Jamie Dimon may face market abuse charges. Blockswater, an algorithmic trading firm, filed these charges at the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority against JP Morgan Chase and it's CEO. The complaint notes among other things that Jamie should have known his statements would affect "the cryptocurrency's price and reputation". In addition, he "knew, or ought to have known, that the information he disseminated was false and misleading."
The fact that JP Morgan Chase was trading on BTC and derivatives prior and after his statements makes a case stronger for market manipulation charges.
What do you think, should Jamie be charged and prosecuted for what he has done? Should JP Morgan Chase pay a fine?
Let me know in the comments below.
Stay tuned!
Images:
https://bittrex.com
http://www.chingyutan.com/articles/jamie-dimon-bitcoin-endgame-exposed/
References:
http://www.cityam.com/272451/jamie-dimon-faces-market-abuse-report-after-his-comments
https://cointelegraph.com/news/chase-bank-buys-bitcoin-even-as-jamie-dimon-rejects-it
https://cointelegraph.com/news/ceo-of-jp-morgan-chase-warns-govts-will-ban-bitcoin-crypto-worth-nothing
https://www.cointelegraph.com/news/criticizing-bitcoin-could-backfire
