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JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon annual letter cites risks in geopolitics, AI, private markets

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JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon annual letter cites risks in geopolitics, AI, private markets

Jamie Dimon, Chairman and CEO, JPMorganChase, speaks during the Reagan National Defense Forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, U.S. December 6, 2025.

Jonathan Alcorn | Reuters

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon is calling for a broad recommitment to American ideals as his bank navigates geopolitical uncertainty, a teetering economy and the revolutionary impact of artificial intelligence.

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Dimon in his annual letter to shareholders, published Monday, noted the country’s 250th anniversary as “the perfect time to rededicate ourselves to the values that made this great nation of ours — freedom, liberty and opportunity.”

“The challenges we all face are significant. The list is long but at the top are the terrible ongoing war and violence in Ukraine, the current war in Iran and the broader hostilities in the Middle East, terrorist activity and growing geopolitical tensions, importantly with China,” Dimon said. “Even in troubled times, we have confidence that America do what it has always done — look to the values that have defined our singular nation and sustained our leadership of the free world.”

Dimon, the longtime leader of the world’s largest bank by market cap, is among the most outspoken of U.S. corporate leaders. His annual letter offers not only a matter of record for his firm’s performance, but also sweeping perspectives on the global state of affairs.

In Monday’s letter, Dimon noted headwinds including global conflicts, persistent inflation, private market upheaval and what he called “poor bank regulations.”

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Dimon said that while regulations like those put in place after the 2008 financial crisis “accomplished some good things … they also created a fragmented, slow-moving system with expensive, overlapping and excessive rules and regulations — some of which made the financial system weaker and reduced productive lending.”

He specifically cited negative consequences of capital and liquidity requirements, the current construction of the Federal Reserve’s stress test and a “badly handled” process at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Dimon also said JPMorgan’s reaction to revised proposals for Basel 3 Endgame and a global systemically important bank (GSIB) surcharge — issued by U.S. regulators last month — were “mixed.”

“While it was good to see that the recent proposals for the Basel 3 Endgame (B3E) and GSIB attempted to reduce the increase in required capital from the 2023 proposals, there are still some aspects that are frankly nonsensical,” Dimon said.

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The CEO said the aggregate proposed surcharges of about 5%, the bank would need to hold “as much as 50% more capital across the vast majority of loans to U.S. consumers and businesses when compared with a large non-GSIB bank for the same set of loans.”

“Frankly, it’s not right, and it’s un-American,” he said.

On trade and geopolitics

Dimon identified geopolitical tensions as the primary risk facing his bank, namely the wars in Ukraine and Iran and their impacts on commodities and global markets — deeming war “the realm of uncertainty.”

“The outcome of current geopolitical events may very well be the defining factor in how the future global economic order unfolds,” he said. “Then again, it may not.”

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He also cited a “realignment of economic relations in the world” brought on by U.S. trade policy. U.S. President Donald Trump has made tariffs a signature policy of his second term in office, introducing higher duties on dozens of trade partners and import categories.

“The trade battles are clearly not over, and it should be expected that many nations are analyzing how and with whom they should create trade arrangements,” Dimon said. “While some of this is necessary for national security and resiliency, which are paramount, it is hard to figure out what the long-term effects will be.”

On private markets

Dimon also spoke to recent upheaval in the private markets, as fears around loans made to software firms spur massive redemption requests at private credit funds.

“By and large, private credit does not tend to have great transparency or rigorous valuation ‘marks’ of their loans — this increases the chance that people will sell if they think the environment will get worse — even if actual realized losses barely change,” Dimon said.

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The executive added that actual losses are already higher than they should be relative to the environment.

“However this plays out, it should be expected that at some point insurance regulators will insist on more rigorous ratings or markdowns, which will likely lead to demands for more capital,” he said.

On AI

Dimon reiterated Monday that the pace of AI adoption is unlike any technology that came before it. He said while its implementation will be “transformational,” it remains to be seen how the AI revolution will unfold.

“Overall, the investment in AI is not a speculative bubble; rather, it will deliver significant benefits. However, at this time, we cannot predict the ultimate winners and losers in AI- related industries,” Dimon said.

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“We will not put our heads in the sand. We will deploy AI, as we deploy all technology, to do a better job for our customers (and employees),” he wrote.

JPMorgan has been at the forefront of Wall Street firms introducing AI at every level of its business. Last year, JPMorgan Chief Analytics Officer Derek Waldron gave CNBC an early demonstration into how it’s using agentic AI to speed up work and improve results for customers and shareholders.

In February, Dimon said AI was reshaping JPMorgan’s workforce and that the bank had “huge redeployment plans” for employees.

“We have focused on some of the ‘known and predictable’ and some of the ‘known unknown’ events,” he said. “But huge technological shifts like AI always have second- and third-order effects as well that can deeply impact society. … We should be monitoring for this kind of transformation, too.”

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— CNBC’s Leslie Picker and Ritika Shah contributed to this report.

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Crypto World

Samson Mow Warns Rushed Quantum Fix Could Harm Bitcoin

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Samson Mow Warns Rushed Quantum Fix Could Harm Bitcoin

Rushed quantum fixes for Bitcoin could introduce new risks, Samson Mow warned in response to calls from Coinbase executives for faster action.

Mow, a Bitcoin advocate and Jan3 founder, took to X on Saturday to address comments from Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and chief security officer Philip Martin, who urged the industry to begin preparing for quantum computing threats sooner rather than later.

He said that while post-quantum (PQ) cryptography could secure Bitcoin (BTC) against future quantum computers, rushing implementation may create new vulnerabilities such as compatibility issues and reduced network efficiency due to larger signature sizes.

“Simply put: make Bitcoin safe against quantum computers just to get pwned by normal computers,” Mow said, adding that a poorly timed transition could weaken Bitcoin against today’s threats before addressing future ones.

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The exchange reflects a growing debate over how to future-proof Bitcoin, as new research from Google and Caltech reignited concerns about progress in quantum computing.

Why Mow is pushing back and how it ties to the block size wars

One of Mow’s biggest concerns about rushing a quantum fix for Bitcoin is the potential impact on performance, particularly block size, or the amount of transaction data that can fit into a single block.

“PQ signatures will likely be 10-125x larger than current ones, and massively reduce throughput,” Mow said, citing former Bitcoin developer Jonas Schnelli.

Source: Jonas Schnelli

The signature issue could potentially pave the way for “Blocksize Wars 2.0,” Mow continued.

Bitcoin’s block size wars began around 2015 and peaked in 2017, when the community split over whether to increase the block size to handle more transactions.

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Related: Circle unveils quantum-resistant roadmap for its layer-1 blockchain Arc

That dispute raised concerns about decentralization, network security and who controls Bitcoin’s future, ultimately leading to alternative scaling solutions rather than a simple increase in block size.

Despite arguing against rushing a transition to post-quantum cryptography for Bitcoin, Mow said work on potential solutions should continue.

“Given that quantum computers don’t actually exist and likely won’t exist for another 10-20 years, the worst possible course of action is to rush a fix,” he said. “That’s not to say work shouldn’t be done to prepare, and there is already much work being done.”

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Magazine: Nobody knows if quantum secure cryptography will even work