JPMorgan steps over Dimon’s line again, praises Bitcoin as ‘new gold’

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U.S. banking giant JPMorgan Chase has been in the headlines recently after CEO Jamie Dimon drew the line against dealing with “fraud” Bitcoin. It appears, however, that the company has chosen not to listen to its head honcho’s ramblings.

Instead, analysts at JPMorgan are reportedly praising the cryptocurrency’s potential to become the “new gold,” according to UK’s The Telegraph.

BTC recorded a new all-time high on Thursday, trading above the $13,000 level with a market capitalization of over $218 billion, while Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is trading at around $1,480 with a $24.93 billion market cap, according to CoinMarketCap data. The new price record comes on the heels of Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) and the CME Group announcing that they will start offering Bitcoin futures this month.

The recent price hikes, along with the upcoming launch of Bitcoin futures contracts, may potentially “elevate cryptocurrencies to an emerging asset class,” according to JPMorgan analyst Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou.

“The prospective launch of Bitcoin futures contracts by established exchanges, in particular, has the potential to add legitimacy and thus increase the appeal of the cryptocurrency market to both retail and institutional investors,” Panigirtzoglou said, according to the news outlet.

JPMorgan’s stance is particularly surprising, not to mention ironic, given that its chief executive is an outspoken critic of the cryptocurrency. If you recall, Dimon infamously called BTC a “fraud” that will eventually “blow up,” and even went as far as threatening to fire “in a second” any JPMorgan trader who will deal with the cryptocurrency.

“It’s against our rules and they are stupid,” Dimon said in September.

However, this isn’t the first time that the banking giant has chosen to step over the line that Dimon drew. Several weeks ago, reports surfaced that JPMorgan may soon follow the footsteps of Goldman Sachs by “considering whether to provide its clients access to CME’s [Chicago Mercantile Exchange] new [BTC] product through its futures-brokerage unit.”

Note: Tokens in the SegWit chain are referred to as SegWit1X (BTC) and SegWit Gold (SWG) and are no longer Bitcoin. Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is the only true  Bitcoin as intended by the original Satoshi white paper.  Bitcoin BCH is the only public block chain that offers safe and cheap microtransactions.