The Hypocrisy of Jamie Dimon and the Democrats’ About-Face on Crypto

Plus, the coolest tech for college classrooms

It's Thursday, June 20th. Yesterday, Jean and I went up to Rowan University where Jean had a board meeting. She's on the Board of Trustees at Rowan. And we had lunch with Ali Houshmand, the President of the University, and then we had the opportunity before the board meeting began to go visit their technology park and do a demonstration of their Dreamscape project. This is absolutely fascinating. This is virtual reality. They took us into a room with – there were half a dozen of us involved in this little demo.

We put on – not just goggles – we also put devices on our hands and our feet and went into a room that was a totally immersive virtual reality setting. We felt things shake. We were able to walk around. We saw ourselves and each other as full body avatars. We were able to engage with folks as dinosaurs and monsters were wandering around with us. We were able to reach out and touch them. As one of them sneezed on us, we felt the mist of their snot. It was, of course, water vapor, and it was an absolutely enthralling experience. So what? Why would Rowan University bother to be creating a virtual reality playground? Well, because play has nothing to do with it.

This was just a demonstration that we went through. What they're actually using this for is in classroom education. They actually have a classroom with 30 seats. Every student dons this full gear. They sit in the classroom; they aren't wandering around aimlessly the way we were just as part of the demonstration. But in the classroom, they are seated wearing the full body gear and the goggles and so on, where they are getting intense instruction. First, in biology. Second, in chemistry. Just imagine students who are able to walk through the human heart, transmit through the bloodstream, engage in an intense – literally – inside-look at human organs. Study the biology and the anatomy in a way students never could before. And in chemistry, looking not only at chemical compounds and chemical interactions, but able to look at the periodic table from the inside of atoms.

This is truly revolutionary. Rowan University is leading the nation in the development of this technology. The core tech was built by Arizona State University. Rowan has licensed the technology and is building out additional courses. Faculty from across Rowan University are developing syllabus, they're creating course curricula, and they’re going to be integrating this into their classes in virtually every academic major, and then Rowan will be licensing all of this to universities across the country so they don't have to reinvent the wheel. They can just purchase the product from Rowan and from ASU. Pretty exciting stuff.

Also pretty exciting is that my conversation with Josh Brown, which he and I taped a couple of weeks ago at his studios in New York just went live. We have a link to it in our show notes. Josh Brown, of course, on CNBC every day. He and I have known each other for decades and are good friends. And Josh is one of the leading voices in the financial advisory space, with a brand new YouTube channel called Advisor Unlock. And he also has an article about the piece, that we talked about, and we've got a link to that in the show notes for you as well. So, I hope you'll go check that out. And in that conversation that Josh and I had, I actually explained – in just 30 seconds – why bitcoin is going to $420,000. I also produced a full hour-long webinar on this. We now have a 30-minute presentation of that at our VISION conference, but I explain it to Josh in just 30 seconds. It's available to you for free. Go click on the link to the YouTube conversation that Josh and I had. It's a pretty fun chat.

Also, I've been telling you about VISION between now and the end of June. You have the opportunity to watch all of the sessions that I hosted at our annual VISION conference. One of the top sessions was moderated by Perianne Boring of the Digital Chamber of Commerce. She interviewed U.S. Congressman Wiley Nickel of the House Financial Services Committee on the latest crypto legislation. And you can watch that conversation. You'll also really want to see the conversation I had with Dennis Cristallo. He is the head of wealth management for Onyx. If that name doesn't ring a bell, JP Morgan does. Now we all know about JP Morgan.

We all know that Jamie Dimon, their CEO hates bitcoin, hates crypto. He has said relentlessly that the only thing it's good for is sex trafficking. He made a comment at a Senate hearing earlier this year, where he said, if I were the government, I would ban bitcoin. This is a guy who aspires to be the next U.S. Treasury Secretary, rumor has it. And meanwhile, JP Morgan has launched Onyx. Even though Jamie Dimon's running around the world saying crypto stinks, JP Morgan is actually one of the leaders in crypto. Its Onyx blockchain platform processes more than a billion dollars a day of securitized treasury transactions for its institutional clients on a global basis. So, I brought to VISION Dennis Cristallo, who heads Onyx for JP Morgan. And one of the most pointed questions I asked Dennis is, what the hell, how can JP Morgan be a leader in crypto if Jamie Dimon profusely hates it, and yet at the same time, JP Morgan is building Onyx? So, it's a fascinating and fun conversation with Dennis, who was sincerely hoping by the time the conversation was over, he would still have a job.

That conversation is available to you online as well. The link to all of the 18 sessions from VISION. 10.5 CE credits. Only available through the end of the month. The link’s in the show notes.

And in other crypto news in just the past two days: big, big news. The SEC has abandoned its allegation that Ethereum is a security. This has been an open question. The SEC, years ago, said it was not. Gary Gensler, the current chair has said, well, maybe it is. And recently the SEC actually filed a Wells Notice against Consensys. A Wells Notice is basically an announcement that we are about to sue you for your illegal activity. This was a big threatening letter that Consensys received over allegations that Consensys was engaged in the sale of unregistered securities – meaning the sale of Ethereum. When the SEC issues a Wells Notice, it's all but a done deal that they are going to file a lawsuit. They're going to pursue major fines, maybe even end up with people in prison. But the SEC just two days ago sent a letter to Consensys saying they are not going to file a lawsuit. They are withdrawing their Wells Notice. And the SEC will not allege that the company is buying and selling Ethereum representing improper securities transactions. And this is a huge win for crypto. It's a yet another example of how the Biden Administration is doing a fast about face on the subject of digital assets.

The Biden Administration, which has been relentless in its opposition to crypto, suddenly, as I've been telling you here on this podcast, rapidly and suddenly and recently changing its tune: recognizing that this has become a campaign issue. There are 50 million U.S. adults who own bitcoin. Biden threatening to make bitcoin illegal. Well, that's pretty much the equivalent of what the government did in the 1930s with prohibition, telling millions of Americans you can no longer have a beer. Well, that's basically what Biden's been doing with bitcoin. Threatening to take it away with throwing Jamie Dimon into a Senate hearing with Elizabeth Warren saying I would ban it. Donald Trump is taking political contributions in bitcoin and Ethereum. And guess what? Now the rumor is Joe Biden's campaign is about to do the same. They are talking to the crypto community about accepting bitcoin and Ethereum as campaign contributions too. Their goal is apparently to defuse crypto as a campaign issue and that's smart because the Democrats are on their heels on this subject.

And now that the crypto community has amassed $250 million in PAC money, they are going to be throwing that money at congressional candidates who are favorable to crypto. And you can imagine the Democrats are running scared on this issue. So big news there.

And, oh, by the way, my final news of the day that I just want to toss at you comes from Vanguard. Vanguard just announced that if you are their customer and you bother them too much, they're going to close your account without notice or warning. This is the same company that said a couple of months ago, they will not let their customers buy any of the new bitcoin ETFs. Now Vanguard is saying that if you call them on the phone too often, they're going to terminate your account.

This new rule goes into effect July 1st. And the notice that Vanguard just sent to their account holders says, “At its discretion, we reserve the right to close your account or terminate any feature or service at any time for any reason without prior notice, inclusive of not meeting our digital interaction expectations. We reserve the right to resolve non trade inquiries exclusively on our website or other available channels, as opposed to by phone.” In other words, don't bother me. Vanguard is obviously upset that some of its customers are calling the company on the phone too much, taking up too much time of their representatives on the phone.

Isn't that what a customer service call center is supposed to be doing? Answering phone calls? Responding to people who have questions? But apparently Vanguard is now saying we don't want to talk to you. We want to send you to our automated website where you have to go deal with a digital chatbot, who provides you with, prewritten, automated, scripted answers to your questions that are always incredibly vague and off point. Why is somebody going to tolerate that nonsense? I have no idea.

I'll see you tomorrow.

-----