JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon reiterated the previous bitcoin skepticism in a recent interview with Axios. When asked if Bitcoin is the fool’s gold of the future, Dimon replied that it has no fundamental value.
Dimon fails to see the true value of Bitcoin because of his financial privileges, which blind him to the realities of the billionaires living outside his utopian bubble.
You don’t have to worry about halving his savings overnight or endure periods of hyperinflation that erode purchasing power. He also does not know what it means to not have access to the banking system and is accustomed to a high degree of freedom that many people lack.
“It has no intrinsic value,” Dimon said. “The regulators are going to get out of hell.”
The intrinsic value fallacy is a fundamental approach in economics used by Karl Marx, and conservative economists still apply the concept today to gold as compared to paper money. However, there is nothing intrinsic to the value of anything.
Historical value is often confused with intrinsic value, says economist Dr. Gary North, in his book The “Intrinsic Value Fallacy” of FEE. Since gold has historically been accepted by most people and used to store wealth, some tend to believe that this The value in storing and exchanging wealth is intrinsic to gold, but this is not the case.
Instead, value is externally determined by humans and their personal needs and desires, and its continuity brings historical value. Using the dollar long enough, for example, can create historical significance, but this will not impart intrinsic value to the US dollar.
In fact, the historical value of Bitcoin may not exist yet. A peer-to-peer currency created just over a decade ago has yet to stand the test of time compared to the thousands of years that gold has held. But this does not mean that Bitcoin has no value.
Bitcoin is the only cash network in the world that allows any user to transact value with anyone else, regardless of location, race, creed or status. Bitcoin also allows people to store healthy money that governments cannot control or influence, ensuring basic rights and empowering individuals. Therefore, Bitcoin is not cheating gold, but rather a much better version of the shiny metal.
It’s no surprise that Dimon, who recently received a $49 million increase in JPMorgan stock options to a $31 million compensation package, can’t see the value of bitcoin right now. The level of financial privilege the JPMorgan CEO enjoys already blinds him to the transformative power that Bitcoin can provide to billions of people around the world.
Besides the economics of Bitcoin, Dimon does not understand the technical aspects of it either. Bitcoin cannot be banned and cannot be controlled. It is a peer-to-peer currency in which all users are treated equally, and all transactions are validated by the same non-governmental rules.
However, we hope that time will lead Damon to understand these things and learn how valuable Bitcoin is to humanity as a whole. But if not, no problem, Bitcoin doesn’t care either.