Jamie Dimon Once Called Bitcoin a 'Fraud'—Now JP Morgan Projects 10% Annualized Returns
JPMorgan Asset Management projects Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) could return 10% annually over the next decade in its base case, edging out U.S. large-cap stocks and gold.
Why Hougan Calls This a Turning Point for Bitcoin
Bitwise Chief Investment Officer Matt Hougan posted on X a riff on the old activist quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight at you, then they add you to their Long-Term Capital Markets Assumptions paper and predict you’ll be the best-performing asset of the next decade.”
That line lands harder given JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) CEO Jamie Dimon’s own history with Bitcoin, which crypto commentator Darkfost laid out on X:
- 2017: called Bitcoin a fraud
- 2021: dismissed it as worthless
- 2023: said he’d ban it if he could
- 2024: compared it to a Ponzi scheme
- 2026: JPMorgan launched JPM Coin on Ethereum
JPMorgan’s report uses an $83,000 Bitcoin starting price and lays out three scenarios over 10 years:
- Base case: 10.0% annualized
- Bull case: 16.6% annualized
- Bear case: -11.2% annualized
Despite those projections, the bank still calls Bitcoin speculative and excludes it from its core portfolio models, citing high volatility and unstable correlations with other assets.
What Else the Report Says About Stocks, Bonds and AI
JPMorgan raised its 10-to-15-year return forecast for U.S. large-cap equities to 7.5% from 6.7%, driven largely by a $15 trillion global AI investment surge the bank expects to lift productivity.
It now projects AI could assist roughly 40% of today’s US work tasks by 2040, up from about 6% currently.
Fixed income saw the sharpest improvement in the report, with US aggregate bonds now carrying a 5.6% annual return forecast and investment-grade corporate bonds sitting at 6.1%, the strongest bond outlook JPMorgan has published in roughly two decades.
Private markets saw gains as well:
- Diversified hedge funds: jumped to 6.7% from 5.3%
- Private equity composite: slipped slightly to 9.8% from 10.2%
- Venture capital: 8.8%
- Infrastructure: 7.1%
- Commodities: 4.8%, trailing the pack
Why Emerging Markets Lost Their Edge Over Developed Markets
For the first time in the report’s history, developed-market equities are forecast to outperform emerging markets.
JPMorgan cut its emerging-market equity return forecast to 7.1% from 7.8%, pointing to unusually strong semiconductor profits in Korea and Taiwan that the bank expects to normalize over the coming years.
A traditional 60% equity, 40% bond portfolio now carries a 7.0% expected annual return, up from 6.4%, according to the report.
Meanwhile, JPMorgan found that adding a 30% allocation to diversified alternatives alongside stocks and bonds pushed that figure to 7.5% while also improving the portfolio’s risk-adjusted performance.
Image: Shutterstock