“Our government invited us and others to step up, and we did,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon said. Crypto fans may know Dimon as one of the highest-profile advocates of “blockchain” and long-time bitcoin critic. First Republic’s failure is second only to Washington Mutual, which failed during the Great Financial Crisis that also gave rise to bitcoin. While some amount of blame could be put on First Republic’s management, economists are largely aligned in thinking its collapse is at least partially due to rising interest rates and the Federal Reserve’s hawkish monetary policy that also brought down the Silvergate, Silicon Valley and Signature banks early this year.