JPM to breech-birth own cryptocurrency

Jamie Dimon once called bitcoin a “fraud” — but now he’s leading Wall Street’s push into cryptocurrencies.

Banking behemoth JPMorgan Chase will reportedly start issuing bitcoin-like digital currencies called “JPMCoins” to other institutions and accredited investors, making it the first major bank to issue its own form of the digital money.

The JPM Coins would be worth a dollar each, and would largely be used to speed up transactions, settlements, and treasury services, Umar Farooq, head of JPMorgan’s blockchain projects, told CNBC.

“So anything that currently exists in the world, as that movesonto the blockchain, this would be the payment leg for that transaction,” Farooq said.

The bank plans to start testing the coins in the next “few months,” but it would likely be limited to a small slice of the $6 trillion in daily transactions and fund movements, CNBCsaid.

In 2017, Dimon was a vocal skeptic of bitcoin, calling it “stupid” in addition to fraudulent, and vowed to fire any of his traders he caught trading the digital currency.

“I wouldn’t put this high in the category of ‘important things in the world,’ ” the brash billionaire banker said in 2017.

Since then, the bank CEO has apologized for calling it a fraud, and said the technology behind bitcoin, called blockchain, had real applications for the financial industry.

Large Wall Street institutions have been wary of using blockchain technology, which is relatively untested and can be expensive and buggy.

While GoldmanSachs has reportedly shelved a crypto-trading desk, banks like Citigroup have invested heavily in exploring how to use blockchain technology.