Wall Street's biggest bank just planted another flag on a public blockchain. JPMorgan's JPM Coin, a digital token that stands for real dollars on deposit at the bank, went live on the Ethereum network on Monday, Oct. 19.
CoinDesk reported, citing a Bloomberg interview and an emailed statement from the bank, that the token was deployed on the Ethereum mainnet and is available for institutional clients to use. JPM Coin first launched about a year earlier on Base, the network built by Coinbase.
What is JPM Coin, and what changed on Oct. 19?
JPM Coin is a digital token that represents U.S. dollars held as deposits at JPMorgan, one for one. On Oct. 19, the bank made it available on the public Ethereum blockchain, so approved business clients can move and settle dollar payments there. Before this, it ran on Coinbase's Base network.
The token, also known by the ticker JPMD, is run through Kinexys, JPMorgan's blockchain business. The Block reported that Kinexys called Ethereum a natural choice because of its "established depth of onchain liquidity and tokenized assets." According to CoinDesk, Emma Landriault, head of Kinexys Labs, told Bloomberg that the bank picked Ethereum because it has more liquidity than rival networks and is already used by institutional clients.
CoinDesk said the token is aimed at two kinds of customers: crypto companies that want to make payments on a blockchain, and financial firms that need a digital dollar to settle trades or back tokenized assets, such as funds or bonds recorded on a blockchain.
Why does a bank token on Ethereum matter?
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Kiara Miller — Founder & Editor
Kiara Miller is the founder and editor of The Evergreen Edit. He has been doing independent finance research for two decades and reviews every article before it's published.
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