An earlier version of the headline for this article misspelled the name JPMorgan Chase. The story has been corrected.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon told lawmakers they should crack down on cryptocurrency transactions by terror groups and rogue nations.
“If I were the government I’d close it down,” Dimon said Wednesday when asked by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, about digital-currency transactions during a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
Transactions by North Korea and Hamas, among others, have funded terrorism around the world, Warren said.
Dimon and chief executives from seven other large U.S. banks agreed that cryptocurrency brokers should be subject to the same regulations as banks under the Bank Secrecy Act, which is designed to prevent terrorists and drug traffickers from using the financial system to fund their activities.
Dimon said he’s “always been deeply opposed to crypto.”
The widely quoted bank executive has been an outspoken opponent of cryptocurrency for some time already. In an interview with CNBC-TV in January, he compared crypto to the “pet rock” fad of the 1970s.
Also read: ‘Bitcoin is a hyped-up fraud, it’s a pet rock’: says JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon
Dimon also said bitcoin BTCUSD, -1.31% was worthless in a 2021 interview with CNN.
He is not opposed to digital forms of currency, however. JPMorgan has its JPM Coin, which it describes as a “permissioned system that serves as a payment rail and deposit account ledger.”