‘I’m open-minded to uses of cryptocurrencies’ with regulation

Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon seems to be softening his tone on cryptocurrencies.

“Look, everyone has a personal opinion about Bitcoin. I remain highly skeptical of it,” Dimon told CNBC’s Wilfred Frost. “But as I’ve said previously, I’m open-minded to uses of cryptocurrencies if properly controlled and regulated.”

The latest remarks come after months of criticism from JPMorgan’s top executive.

“If you’re stupid enough to buy it, you’ll pay the price for it one day,” Dimon warned back in October, when bitcoin traded around $5,800. The digital currency has since soared above $19,000 on some online exchanges Thursday and was near $16,000 Friday.

Though the executive called bitcoin a “fraud” back in September, he did note that the digital currency could potentially soar as high as $100,000 before topping.

“I’m not saying ‘go short bitcoin and sell $100,000 of bitcoin before it goes down,” he said in September. “This is not advice of what to do. My daughter bought bitcoin, it went up and now she thinks she’s a genius.”