Bitcoin took some 15 years from creation to eclipse $100,000. Along the way, the digital currency experienced feverish rallies and spectacular crashes. Today, it is newly ascendant in Washington and a $2 trillion asset. Yet some of Wall Street's biggest luminaries still aren't convinced of its value.
The world's largest cryptocurrency has been buoyed by hopes that the digital-assets industry will bloom under a second Donald Trump administration. Investor enthusiasm over a coming crypto renaissance has lifted other tokens too, pushing the market cap of all cryptocurrencies toward $4 trillion.
With prices rising and crypto companies flush with cash, some of the biggest banks and asset managers on Wall Street are trying to capitalize on the resurgence. Others continue to shun what they see as a speculative bubble. Here's how the views of some of the world's biggest investors have evolved over time:
Jamie Dimon
The JPMorgan Chase chief executive has never been a fan of bitcoin. In 2017, he famously called the token a fraud and said he would fire any JPMorgan employee found trading bitcoin for the bank. In congressional hearings, he referred to crypto tokens as "decentralized Ponzi schemes" and suggested the government should "close it down."
Jamie Dimon has maintained his personal skepticism of bitcoin even while the bank became a pioneer in adopting blockchain technology and agreed to facilitate trading in some of the exchange-traded funds that hold bitcoin.
More recently, Dimon said bitcoin is a useless "pet rock."
Larry Fink
The chief executive of BlackRock was once a proud skeptic of bitcoin, calling it "an index of money laundering" back in 2017 and later rebuffing cryptocurrencies as something his clients weren't looking to buy.
These days, Fink, whose company runs the world's largest bitcoin fund, says he changed his opinion after studying the digital currency. He says bitcoin is a legitimate asset that produces returns uncorrelated to traditional assets and hedges against currency debasement and political instability.
Ken Griffin
The chief of hedge-fund giant Citadel has cautioned against what he saw as the speculative bubble in bitcoin over the years. Like many critics, the billionaire has compared it with the tulip-bulb mania of the 17th century. His most fiery comment, though, came in 2021 when token prices surged.
"I wish all this passion and energy that went into crypto was aimed at making the United States stronger," Griffin said at a public appearance in Chicago in October 2021. "Let's face it, it's a jihadist call that we don't believe in the dollar."
Griffin now calls his prior judgment of bitcoin "a mistake," but says he still questions the economic utility of the virtual currency.
"Of course, I wish I bought something that trades at 100 times the price it traded at a few years ago," he said at the recent New York Times DealBook summit.
Warren Buffett
The chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway has been a longstanding critic of bitcoin. One of his most scathing comments about the cryptocurrency came during Berkshire's 2018 annual meeting, when he described bitcoin as "probably rat poison squared." Buffett then said he wouldn't take all the bitcoin in the world for $25.
The billionaire investor didn't mention bitcoin at Berkshire's shareholder meeting in May. He said in emailed comments last week that he is saving any discussion for Berkshire's next meeting when shareholders will get the chance to ask him whatever they wish.
The magnate reaffirmed his critical stance on bitcoin in an interview with CNBC in April 2023, attributing the long-lasting crypto craze to Americans' strong gambling instincts.
Ray Dalio
The founder of Bridgewater Associates dismissed bitcoin as "a speculative bubble" in 2017. But the hedge-fund manager has become more bullish on the digital currency over the years.
In 2021, he called bitcoin "one hell of an invention" and an "alternative gold-like asset" in an essay. Dalio, who has disclosed that he owns some bitcoin and ether, also voiced his concerns about the long-term demand for bitcoin and a potential government crackdown on the cryptocurrency.
"When I a) put myself in the shoes of government officials, b) see their actions, and c) hear what they say, it is hard for me to imagine that they would allow bitcoin (or gold) to be an obviously better choice than the money and credit that they are producing," Dalio wrote in 2021.
"I suspect that bitcoin's biggest risk is being successful, because if it's successful, the government will try to kill it and they have a lot of power to succeed."
Most recently, the billionaire warned about the rising debtload of global central banks and suggested investors look to gold and bitcoin.