By
Bhushan Akolkar
April 23rd, 2024
Crypto sphere attracts all the more attention winning minds of governments, top industrialists and businessmen. Now richest bankers and the whole dynasties take the lead in this crypto expansion.
Cryptocurrency, like most (if not all) disrupting technologies, has caused quite a lot of hype dividing the whole world into two camps: “anti-cryptos” from the one side, and its followers from the other.
However, as technology evolves, people are changing parties – some lose faith in cryptos, while most come to realizing of attractiveness of this truly innovative paradigm.
We, as may all cryptocurrency enthusiasts, are pleased to notice that the latter group takes abroad ever increasing number of big businesses, now welcoming most affluent and the richest ones.
1. Jamie Dimon (JP Morgan Chase CEO)
He is a billionaire banker who, on multiple occasions, has been included in the list of Top-100 World’s Influential People according to Time Magazine. Since 2006, Jamie Dimon has been managing JP Morgan Chase, which is among the world’s largest banks. Being one of America’s oldest banks, today its assets amount to 2,789 trillion dollars.
Jamie Dimon is known to be a longtime opponent of bitcoin. Back in 2014, he stated that bitcoin was a “terrible store of value”. In September 2017 the banker said:
“Bitcoin will eventually blow up. It’s a fraud. It’s worse than tulip bulbs and will not end well.”
Dimon believe that bitcoin “is not a real thing, eventually, it will be closed.” He also added that he would fire any trader selling bitcoins because “…it’s against our rules and they are stupid.”
It is likely Dimon was not that familiar with the topic, since later in January 2018, he abandoned his previous statements. “I regret making that comment”, he said; “The blockchain is real. You can have crypto yen and dollars and stuff like that. ICO’s you have to look at individually.”
On April 20th, JP Morgan, together with other major banks (including Goldman Sachs) conducted a test transaction through the Quorum blockchain-platform developed within the bank.
In early May information came to light that JP Morgan had applied for a patent. Interestingly enough, the patent was originally issued in October although it wasn’t until May 3rd that the statement was made public by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The application describes a system that utilizes distributed data books, such as blockchain, for tracking payments sent between various financial institutions.
On May 17th, 2018 JP Morgan made it clear that it was indeed serious about cryptocurrencies. A London fintech specialist, Oliver Harris, was invited by the bank to develop their cryptocurrency strategy. Today, Oliver is responsible for design and implementation of the blockchain as well as creating new cryptocurrency projects within the bank.
2. Goldman Sachs Group
One of the world’s largest investment banks, a financial conglomerate. The scope of Goldman Sachs covers investment banking, securities trading, capital management, as well as many other financial services. The bank was founded in 1869 by Marcus Goldman and Samuel Sachs. At the beginning of the 20th century, Goldman Sachs was the most important player in the newly formed IPO market. Being one of the most technologically advanced Wall Street banks today, Goldman Sachs is striving to demonstrate its supremacy in the field of cryptocurrency.
On February 26th, the fintech company Circle Internet Financial Ltd., (the owner of Goldman Sachs Group), announced the acquisition of the large cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex.
May 2nd the bank announced that it would use its own money to trade Bitcoin futures contracts on behalf of customers. May 15th it became known that Circle is developing a “US dollar” stablecoin which would be regulated and backed by a real government currency. A week later Circle launched a new option in its crypto investment application Circle Invest that was meant to facilitate the emergence of “newcomers” into the market.
3. George Soros (Soros Fund Management)
A world-renowned billionaire, financier, and speculator who is believed to have earned more than one billion dollars on the drop of the pound sterling in just a day (“black Wednesday”, September 16, 1992). His hedge fund Soros Fund Management was founded in 1969, and in 2011 it was converted into a family office which currently manages $26 billion.
At the World Economic Forum, which was held on January 23rd – 26th in Davos, George Soros criticized Bitcoin, calling it a “typical bubble”. He then said that the cryptocurrency is used by dictators “to build a nest egg abroad”. “Bitcoin is not a currency because a currency is supposed to be a stable store of value and the currency that can fluctuate 25% in a day can’t be used, for instance, to pay wages because wages drop by 25% in a day”, George Soros added.
A few months later, on April 6th, it became known that Soros Fund Management intends to trade in cryptocurrencies. Adam Fisher, a macro investing specialist at New York-based Soros Fund Management, received internal approval.
4. The Rockefellers (Venrock)
These are one of the world’s richest and most influential families. The amount of their wealth is yet to be publicized. In 1870, John Rockefeller, together with his brother William Rockefeller and some other partners, founded the oil company Standard Oil, which eventually became the largest US oil monopoly. As the demand for kerosene and gasoline increased rapidly, so did the Rockefeller’s wealth, making John Rockefeller history’s first dollar billionaire. Accounting for inflation levels, his current capital would have amounted to $400 billion.
Laurance Rockefeller, one of John Rockefeller’s grandchildren, together with his relatives, founded Rockefeller Brothers Inc. in 1946. In 1969 it became known as Venrock. Venrock invested in enterprises based on science and technology. Focusing on “startups” in the IT field, Venrock invested in Intel and Apple in the first investment rounds.
Today the Venrock Venture Company, founded by the Rockefellers, is also interested in investing in cryptocurrencies. On April 6th, 2018 it became known that Venrock entered into a partnership agreement with CoinFund to support the blockchain startups. “We wanted to partner with this team”, said David Pakman, a partner at Venrock. He added that Venrock is more interested in a long-term investment in blockchain technology and the cryptocurrency industry.
5. Rothschilds (Rothschild & Co)
Rothschilds are a European banker dynasty that is even more influential than Rockefellers. The founder of the dynasty, Mayer Amschel Rothschild, sent five of his sons to the major financial European capitals: Paris, London, Vienna, Naples, Frankfurt am Main, where they were expected to build family businesses. It is believed that the wealth of the Rothschilds is evenly distributed among all members of the family. Since it has never been made public, this may explain why the Rothschilds do not officially make it onto any of the world’s richest people ratings.
In early April there were rumors among large investors that the Rothschilds are developing a series of experimental cryptocurrency projects. So far, no details have been made available. However, the name of one of the projects, IMMO, has emerged in some online discussions.
Coinspeaker has speculated about what IMMO really is. According to the article, the Rothschilds, who have preserved family wealth for centuries, have probably created IMMO for general accounting and transfer of inheritance of family assets. There is speculation as to whether or not the Rothschilds, acting as an issuer, have created IMMO as a reserve currency, the exchange rate of which is not subject to sharp fluctuations. An interesting reference has been made to the 1988 issue of The Economist (owned by the Rothschilds) which predicted the appearance of a world currency in 2018.
However, according to Vitalik Buterin, nowadays the Rothschilds do not have enough influence: “these days they seem to just be a few hundred or thousand people born into various old-money-type high society positions.” “If old-money-type high society people want to make their own currencies, go ahead, more power to them; see you in the moderately-free market”, Buterin added.
Are "the Rothschilds" actually remotely as powerful and coordinated as the conspiracy theorists seem to believe, or are they just a group of old-money socialites and all that other stuff is overhyped?
Help me learn and decide! https://t.co/rYcyEHhM6F
— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) May 26, 2018
The Rothschilds’s behavior can now be well described by the words of Frederick Morton, the biographer of the Rothschilds:
“Today the family grooms the inaudibility and invisibility of its presence as a result, some believe that little is left apart from a great legend.”
Therefore, it is likely, we won’t be hearing much about IMMO in the near future. Nevertheless, we must be prepared for any information made available by the Rothschilds, which as it happened in April with George Soros and Venrock, similarly could serve as the beginning for a new bitcoin “bull rally”.