Friday, Jan 19, 2024

Dimon, Marks and Bitcoin - the "collective values" of Davos - BTC vs Nasdaq 100

“Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.” – Terry Pratchett ||

Hello everyone, and Happy Friday!!

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IN THIS NEWSLETTER:

• Jamie Dimon vs Howard Marks

• About those “collective values”

• BTC vs Nasdaq 100

WHAT I’M WATCHING:

Jamie Dimon vs Howard Marks

They’re at it again. Two financial industry titans with decades of legacy finance experience are talking in public about Bitcoin. A few years ago, both were heaping scorn on the concept, dismissing it as baseless and not worth their time. But their comments this week highlight just how divergent their intellectual paths have been since then.

I’m talking about JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon and Oaktree Capital CEO Howard Marks.

A few days ago, speaking at the WEF Davos summit, Dimon again called Bitcoin a “pet rock” and a “hyped-up fraud”. He also declared that he has wasted too many words on Bitcoin, and that he wasn’t going to talk about it any more (we can only hope, he has said this before). Dimon has been pounding this particular drum for years, at one stage going as far as to urge Senator Elizabeth Warren to “close it down”. That he thinks this is possible shows just how little he understands the subject he criticizes.

His daughter at one stage held bitcoin. Dimon publicly called her “formerly smart”. (I mean… can you imagine doing that to your kid?)

Marks has a different mindset. He also used to be a Bitcoin critic, calling it an “unfounded fad” back in 2017.