Former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said JP Morgan chairman CEO Jamie Dimon has “changed his tune” toward Bitcoin and crypto, adding that he is willing to appoint the executive as Secretary of the Treasury.
Trump revealed the long-standing Bitcoin critic’s softening stance during an interview with Bloomberg, where he also called for the US to maintain dominance over the crypto sector. Notably, the statements were made in June despite the interview only recently being published.
Trump told the newswire:
“I’ve gotten to know people in the industry, they’re top-flight people. And you ask Jamie Dimon, Jamie Dimon was, you know, very negative and now all of a sudden he’s changed his tune a little bit.”
In the same interview, Bloomberg asked Trump whether he might select Dimon as Secretary of Treasury. Trump responded:
“He is somebody that I would consider, sure.”
Trump described a June meeting with Dimon and other executives of top US companies coinciding with meetings with Republican Congress and Senate members. Trump said the JPM CEO was in attendance and expressed “a lot of respect” for the bank executive.
In 2016, Fortune reported that Trump’s transition team offered Dimon the position during his first term. However, Dimon ultimately declined the role.
More recently, in December 2023, Axios reported on the possibility of Dimon heading the Treasury, citing sources close to Trump’s campaign.
Dimon’s evolving stance
Dimon has long criticized Bitcoin and crypto. As early as 2017, he called Bitcoin a “fraud” and said he would fire any JP Morgan trader trading in the asset.
At the start of the year, he repeated his belief that crypto is a Ponzi scheme and advanced severe criticisms of Bitcoin mining. However, a few months later, in March, he also said he would “defend” the right to buy and hold Bitcoin even if he would not do so himself, hinting at a softening stance.
Despite his negative statements about crypto, Dimon has been an avid advocate of the underlying blockchain technology. In 2022, he expressed support for DeFi and blockchain, calling each area a “real, new technology” in a letter to JP Morgan shareholders.
JP Morgan has been at the forefront of experimenting with distributed ledger technology and has several blockchain-based products, including its Liink network and JPM Coin.