Following BlackRock’s announcement on December 29 that it has canceled its amended Form S-1 filing, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has come under fire from the cryptocurrency community on X, formerly Twitter.
Eric Balchunas, an analyst for Bloomberg ETFs, commented on the BlackRock amendment, saying, “BlackRock just dropped its updated S-1, and it DOES name the APs: Jane Street and JPMorgan (which is kind of ironic).”An organization having the authority to issue and redeem shares of an exchange-traded fund (ETF) is known as an authorized participant.In its proposed spot Bitcoin ETF application, BlackRock designated Jane Street and JPMorgan Securities as “authorized participants” in an updated filing.Dimon hasn’t, however, backed Bitcoin publically.
During a hearing held on December 6 by the US Senate Banking Committee regarding Wall Street company governance, Dimon informed multiple US politicians that if he were in charge of the government, he would attempt to shut down cryptocurrency, asserting that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies’ “only true use case” is to help commit crimes.The hypocrisy of JPMorgan being an approved participant in BlackRock’s spot Bitcoin ETF has been swiftly exposed by cryptocurrency pundits.Crypto phile Silver Zimmermann stated on X that “perhaps money laundering, tax evasion, criminal participation, and drug trafficking is their business as well.”
“If BlackRock wants to do all that, then fine, but how can JP Morgan do all that after telling Congress and Elizabeth Warren that this is what it’s used for?” another user, Sunny Po, asked on X.
Pro-XRP attorney John Deaton also questioned Senator Elizabeth Warren’s position on Bitcoin, pointing out that JPMorgan, owned by Dimon, is prepared to work with the cryptocurrency despite its “negative associations with criminals.”Deaton asked whether this was an attempt at gaslighting or to mislead the people.JPMorgan just introduced its cryptocurrency token, JPM Coin, for its institutional clientele on a private Ethereum blockchain, despite the company’s “deep opposition” to the digital asset market.BlackRock was one of the bank’s clients when it launched a tokenization platform based on blockchain technology in October.Additionally, it helped Ethereum infrastructure startup Consensys raise $65 million in funding in April 2021.