Jpmorgan has been seeking to embrace disruptive trends as traditional banking is challenged by emerging technologies and evolving business models. Despite being an established bank, the financial giant has never shied away from diversifying and experimenting with modern technology, as can be seen in their innovation and investment strategies. In 2015, Wall Street banks made their first foray into the blockchain industry, with jpmorgan Chase partnering with eight banks, including Barclays and BBVA, to form an alliance led by R3. In this post, we explore jpmorgan’s layout in these areas by exploring topics such as blockchain, cryptocurrencies, NFT, and the metaverse. Jpmorgan’s connection to blockchain dates back to February 2016, when the bank began pilot tests of the blockchain technology that underpins bitcoin by using a digital asset holding company. The following year, they launched their own blockchain platform, Quorum, hoping to explore potential ways that DLT (distributed ledger technology) might help speed up their transactions. However, the bank’s association with the alliance was short-lived — jpmorgan parted ways with R3 the following year to pursue an independent technology path. Despite jpmorgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s claim that bitcoin is “a fraud that will eventually explode,” IIN’s launch of a new interbank payment platform based on the Quorum blockchain network to enhance the customer experience is proof enough of the banking giant’s love of blockchain. In 2018, jpmorgan launched Dromaius, a prototype designed to test the use of Ethereum’s blockchain technology. In addition, the Wall Street bank became a strategic investor in enterprise blockchain startup Axoni through its $32 million Series B investment. In 2019, to facilitate transactions between institutional clients, jpmorgan launched JPM Coin, a digital token representing fiat currency that uses blockchain technology for payment transfers. That same year, jpmorgan teamed up with Microsoft to become the first to offer blockchain services through Azure — enabling customers from both platforms to build and scale blockchain networks in the cloud. That said, jpmorgan’s encryption plans aren’t limited to Stablecoins. In 2020, the banking giant is in discussions to merge its Quorum blockchain with Ethereum-based blockchain startup ConsenSys. Around the same time, jpmorgan also began offering cash management services and agreed to handle dollar transactions for Coinbase and Gemini clients in the United States. The next few months saw some key events in jpmorgan’s crypto journey. The banking giant has sold its blockchain Quorum to ConsenSys. On October 27, 2020, jpmorgan first saw its JPM Coin commercialized for global payments by a large tech customer. Within 24 hours of the event, the banking company launched their second blockchain, Onyx, designed to capture the financial services industry’s significant shift to digital currencies. 2021: Embracing crypto economics jpmorgan Chase was eager to jump on the cryptocurrency bandwagon when it launched a cryptocurrency exposure basket of stocks of companies investing in bitcoin in March 2021. In addition, jpmorgan has invested in blockchain companies ConsenSys and HQLAx, and Blockdaemon, the world’s largest blockchain infrastructure company. The banking giant’s ambitions to use blockchain technology to revolutionize the payments world didn’t stop there. Along with DBS Bank and Temasek, jpmorgan created Partior, a joint venture aimed at developing a blockchain-based wholesale payments network for cross-border transactions. In a key move to digitize trading activity, Goldman Sachs launched JPM Coin’s digital Treasury trading on jpmorgan’s Onyx blockchain platform. Despite criticizing bitcoin and discouraging people from investing in it, jpmorgan itself was one of the first major U.S. banks to offer bitcoin and other cryptocurrency funds to its wealth management clients. The following month, they launched another bitcoin fund created by crypto firm NYDIG, allowing financial advisers to start including private banking clients. Toward the end of the year, jpmorgan held the first “TradFi Investor Crypto Economy Forum” event at the bank’s New York headquarters, where it distributed NFT minted on Ethereum’s Layer 2 network, Polygon. 2022 seems to have gotten off to a pretty positive start for the banking giant. The Central Bank of Bahrain has completed a trial of JPM Coin using Onyx, allowing Bank ABC to launch real-time payments in the United States for Bahrain Aluminum (ALBA). What’s more, the banking giant is also branching out into the virtual world by launching an Onyx lounge on Decentraland, along with a paper explaining how businesses can find new opportunities in the virtual world. Jpmorgan Chase, Toshiba and Ciena joined the platform, recognized the security threats to the blockchain network, successfully tested new encrypted networks that could be used to protect blockchain communications, and also invested in TRM Labs, a blockchain intelligence company. It’s a further indication that while cryptocurrencies were initially viewed with suspicion and disdain by jpmorgan’s leadership, that hasn’t stopped the company from embracing the technology behind them and evolving according to market demand; As the agency embraced blockchain, cryptocurrencies, and other web3 trends time and again, it fueled the continued development of banking. There’s no doubt that the Wall Street bank experimenting with the technology behind cryptocurrencies is a welcome change, and the many giant leaps the banking giant has taken to move into the next phase of the decentralized world have caught the attention of all walks of life. Only time will tell what new business the company will pursue next. This article is from poly magnesium Art0X user “Pandora’s Heart”, if there is infringement please contact delete.
