Less than a day after promising to keep quiet, JPMorgan Chase CEO criticizes Bitcoin again

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon can’t seem to shut up when it comes to Bitcoin.

"If you're stupid enough to buy Bitcoin, you're going to pay the price one day," Dimon said at a conference held by the Institute of International Finance on Friday. Dimon said he doesn't care about the price of Bitcoin.

Dimon said Friday that he believes the blockchain technology behind bitcoin is useful but he does not understand the value of a digital currency that is "not backed by a government."

Just yesterday, Dimon said he would no longer talk about Bitcoin.

The promise of silence was broken in one day

“I wouldn’t put this in the category of the most important thing in the world,” Dimon said during JPMorgan’s third-quarter earnings call on Thursday, according to CNBC. “But I’m not going to comment on Bitcoin anymore.”

JPMorgan Chase Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake took over, saying: "We are open to digital currencies that are properly controlled and regulated." She also talked about the possible advantages of blockchain technology that supports Bitcoin.

Dimon’s last words about Bitcoin were reportedly: “I think we’ll one day be moving trillions of dollars in digital form. Not in cash.”

Compared with last month, Dimon's statement was much more moderate in tone.

Just a month ago, on the 12th of last month, Dimon said that cryptocurrencies are a "scam" and are worse than the infamous Dutch speculative activity, the tulip bubble.

Dimon predicted at the time that cryptocurrencies "are not going to end well. People are going to die." He also said that any trader who trades Bitcoin should be fired for being stupid.

The next day, Dimon gave another lecture on the "auntie logic" of Bitcoin trading: My daughter bought Bitcoin and the price went up, so she thought she was a genius. He also said: "You have all seen the precedent of China. The national government always wants to control the money supply.

Bitcoin's strong performance surpasses Goldman Sachs' market value

But Bitcoin did not recover from Dimon's criticism and recently hit a new high.

According to the platform Coindesk, Bitcoin hit a high of $5,856.10 on Friday, approaching $5,900, and its market value reached a maximum of $96.6 billion.

This means that the market value of Bitcoin has exceeded US$9 billion for the first time, surpassing Netflix ($84.5 billion), Morgan Stanley ($89.1 billion) and Goldman Sachs ($96.6 billion) in succession.

If Bitcoin were a stock, it would be the 15th largest component of the Nasdaq by market capitalization.