JPMorgan Chase deployed its long-promised digital currency this week, marking the bank's entry into the blockchain space as a commercial product rather than a research experiment. The JPM Coin went l
JPMorgan Chase deployed its long-promised digital currency this week, marking the bank's entry into the blockchain space as a commercial product rather than a research experiment.
The JPM Coin went live with backing from Takis Georgakopoulos, the bank's global head of wholesale payments. A major technology company will use the coin for cross-border payments beginning this week. JPMorgan will deploy the system commercially for the first time after nearly two years of development.
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The coin operates at a 1:1 parity with U.S. dollars held in JPMorgan vaults, distinguishing it from cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. Rather than serving retail customers, JPMorgan designed the coin for institutional transfers between banks and other large financial firms. The bank first disclosed plans for the currency in February 2019.
Georgakopoulos framed the launch as confirmation that blockchain technology had matured past the inflated expectations surrounding it. "We are launching Onyx because we believe we are shifting to a period of commercialization of those technologies, moving from research and development to something that can become a real business," he said.
JPMorgan assembled Onyx, a dedicated unit staffed with more than 100 employees, to pursue these commercial blockchain applications.
The bank moved beyond JPM Coin itself to position its blockchain network as an open platform. Liik, JPMorgan's financial infrastructure network built on Ethereum code, now serves as the foundation for third-party development. Christine Moy, who runs Liik, said the network operates with distributed rather than centralized control.
"If a Liik participant has specific expertise around payments in a particular region or currency, for example, it has the opportunity to build an application and deploy it on Liik to make it available to the network," Moy said.
The bank invited over 400 financial institutions, including 25 of the world's top 50 banks, to build applications on Liik. JPMorgan executives treated Bitcoin and the broader crypto sector with skepticism, but the company has shifted to launching commercial blockchain products.
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