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Jamie Dimon latest crypto comments show CEO is warming to blockchain, silent on Bitcoin

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One of crypto’s most vocal critics is changing his tune. Jamie Dimon, the CEO and chair of JPMorgan Chase, has said for years that Bitcoin is no different from pet rocks, serving only scammers and money launderers. But as his bank experiments with digital asset ledgers, Dimon has come around to the technology, arguing on Tuesday that “blockchain is real.”

Speaking at Fortune’s Most Powerful Women summit in Washington, DC, Dimon argued that stablecoins and his bank’s own JPMorgan Deposit Token will have real-world use cases, but that the decentralized nature of blockchains makes it a challenge to get parties to agree on permissions and rules. Dimon said this is why JPMorgan’s version of blockchain is private, as opposed to Bitcoin or Ethereum, meaning it has total control of who uses the chain and how.

“It’s going to replace certain systems that we all use that are clunky or late or not 24/7,” Dimon said, citing the short term loans known as intraday repos as an example. But the noted crypto curmudgeon—who famously said in 2017 he’d “fire in a second” any JPMorgan employee trading Bitcoin—also made clear he views the technology as limited.

“It’s not the only thing that can fix it, and sometimes it’s a solution looking for a problem,” Dimon stated, arguing that blockchain won’t “replace everything.”

When asked about Bitcoin, he declined to comment about a subject that has become a lightning rod for one of the world’s most scrutinized CEOs. “Then that’s all I’m going to read about in the headlines,” Dimon joked. “Then I get death threats and sh*t like that.”

Created by the shadowy figure Satoshi Nakamoto in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Bitcoin began as a reaction against the growing power of Wall Street and big banks. But the sector has since expanded, and financial institutions have come to integrate distributed ledger technology in various operations. That includes JPMorgan, which is using its own private, permissioned blockchain, Kinexys, to facilitate money movement within its client base as well as developing its own internal token.

While these efforts have come in fits and starts, the Trump Administration’s pro-crypto bent has caused different Wall Street firms to move more quickly to launch their own products. This has produced a boom in stablecoins, or a type of cryptocurrency that’s pegged to an underlying asset, typically the U.S. dollar. Some banks have looked at stablecoins as an alternative form of money movement, with blockchains potentially reducing fees and processing times for transactions.

On the new Fortune Crypto Playbook vodcast, Fortune’s senior crypto experts decode the biggest forces shaping crypto today. Watch or listen now



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U.S., Mexico strike deal to settle Rio Grande water dispute

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The US and Mexico agreed to end a dispute over water at the border with Texas, days after President Donald Trump vowed to impose additional tariffs.

Both governments agreed that Mexico will deliver an additional 202,000 acre-feet of water beginning the week of Dec. 15 and finalize a broader distribution plan by the end of January, the US Department of Agriculture said in a statement on Friday.

The agreement seeks to “strengthen water management in the Rio Grande basin” within the framework of the 1944 Water Treaty, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry said in a separate statement on Saturday. The treaty requires Mexico to deliver 1.75 million acre-feet of water over five years to the US from the Rio Grande River, while the US is required to deliver 1.5 million acre-feet of water to Mexico from the Colorado River.

The deal eases rising tension between the countries after Trump threatened to slap additional 5% tariffs on Mexican imports and set a deadline for water deliveries starting Dec. 31. Communities along the US-Mexico border in Texas have been affected by water shortages, with the Trump administration pledging a $12 billion lifeline for farmers impacted by US tariffs.

Talks between both administrations continued during the week.

The US administration says that Mexico is 865,000 acre-feet short of water delivery requirements and has accused Mexico of ongoing delivery shortfalls that have caused water shortages for farmers and ranchers in the Rio Grande Valley. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government has insisted it has not violated the treaty, saying it has continued to make water deliveries despite a serious drought in the region.

In Friday’s statement, US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins called the agreement “a step in the right direction” but warned that the Trump administration may follow through with additional tariffs on Mexican imports if the country continues to violate the water treaty.

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At least 2 killed and several more hurt in shooting at Brown University in Rhode Island

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At least 2 people were killed and several more injured in a shooting in the area of Brown University on Saturday, a law enforcement official said, as the Ivy League school issued an active shooter alert and urged students and staff to take shelter during the second day of final exams.

Police did not immediately release details about the number of victims, their conditions or the circumstances of the shooting. The official who gave the tally of at least two dead could not publicly discuss details of the ongoing investigation and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

University officials initially told students and staff that a suspect was in custody, before later saying that was not the case and that police were still searching for a suspect or suspects, according to alerts issued through Brown’s emergency notification system.

“We’re still getting information about what’s going on, but we’re just telling people to lock their doors and to stay vigilant,” said Providence Councilmember John Goncalves, whose ward includes the Brown campus. “As a Brown alum, someone who loves the Brown community and represents this area, I’m heartbroken. My heart goes out to all the family members and the folks who’ve been impacted.”

The reported shooting occurred near the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the university’s School of Engineering and physics department. According to the university’s website, the building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms and offices.

Engineering design exams were underway in the building when the shooting occurred.

President Donald Trump said late in the afternoon that he has been briefed on the shooting.

“God bless the victims and the families of the victims!” he said on his social media site.

Students were urged to shelter in place as police responded to the scene, and people were told to avoid the area. A police officer warned media to take cover in vehicles because the area was still an active scene.

Officials cautioned that information remained preliminary as investigators worked to determine what had occurred.

Police were actively investigating and still gathering information from the scene, said Kristy DosReis, the chief public information officer for the city of Providence. The FBI said it was assisting in the response.

Brown is a private institution with roughly 7,300 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate students. Saturday was the second day of final exams for the fall semester.



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Microsoft’s AI boss calls Elon Musk a ‘bulldozer’ with ‘superhuman capabilities’

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Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman said he’s in regular contact with his peers in artificial intelligence, including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis.

In fact, Suleyman and Hassabis once worked together as cofounders of DeepMind, though Suleyman went on to cofound Inflection AI then joined Microsoft last year.

In a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg on Friday, he was asked to share his thoughts on some of his fellow AI leaders, including Altman, whose startup recently completed a for-profit restructuring and revamped its partnership with Microsoft.

He described Altman as “courageous,” noting that OpenAI is aggressively building out a fleet of AI data centers to handle the massive amount of computing power needed to run ChatGPT.

“He may well turn out to be one of the great entrepreneurs of our generation,” Suleyman added. “He’s certainly achieved a lot. He’s building data centers at a faster rate than anyone in the industry, and if he can pull it off, it will be pretty dramatic.”

And despite concerns that OpenAI’s investment commitments far outstrip its current level of revenue, he said he has every confidence the company can pull it off.

As for Hassabis, Suleyman called him a great scientist. “I think he’s a great thinker and he’s a good polymath. He’s made massive contributions in the field, multiple times. He’s truly exceptional.”

Suleyman also revealed that even though the one-time collaborators are now competitors, they remain good friends and stay in touch regularly. He even texted Hassabis recently to congratulate him on Nano Banana, Gemini 3 and AlphaFold.

Then he was asked about Elon Musk, who is an OpenAI cofounder but has since fallen out with Altman and is pursuing AI through his startup xAI. Suleyman called him a “bulldozer.”

“He’s kind of got superhuman capabilities to bend reality to his will and has, you know, pretty incredible track record,” he added. “And somehow he sort of mostly manages to pull off what appears to be impossible.”

Not only did Musk disrupt the auto and space sectors with Tesla and SpaceX, respectively, he’s charging into medical technology with Neuralink and transportation with the Boring Co.

He also dove into politics, becoming the top Republican donor last year, and briefly joining the Trump administration. He feuded with the president this summer, but they have shown some signs of warming up lately.

While Musk has a “different kind of set of values,” Suleyman said, “I kind of like that he speaks his mind. He’s very unfiltered.”



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