U. S. banks tried to kill crypto but failed

Seven years ago, as regulators in New York were exploring ways to control Bitcoin, executives at Wall Street’s biggest banks were afraid that regulation would also legitimize cryprocurrencies.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2014, Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, called Bitcoin a “terrible” store of value that was also being used for criminal purposes.

At a meeting to discuss violations of Iran sanctions, H. Rodgin Cohen, the finance industry’s preeminent lawyer, warned the state’s regulators that the federal government was “very worried” about Bitcoin and its use.

Those efforts failed and reaped no results. New York’s Department of Financial Services issued licenses for Bitcoin businesses in 2015. There are now more than 75 million users of Bitcoin, up from around three million seven years ago, and the number of digital currencies has exploded. Globally, 220 million people use cryptocurrencies.

Now the banking industry is racing to catch up. Banks want to compete in this new world and profit from it.