JP Morgan will conduct a trial on its in-house cryptocurrency JPM Coin this week. The maiden transfers will take the form of a series of cross-border transactions by an unnamed client. This will mark 18 months since the bank announced the JPM Coin. Potentially ending the use case of bank-focused cryptocurrencies like XRP.
JP Morgan Pioneering Inter-bank Blockchain Payments
CNBC broke the news of the inaugural transactions during an interview with Takis Georgakopoulos, JP Morgan’s global head of wholesale payments. JPM Coin’s intended to be used “by a large technology client to send payments around the world.”.
JPM has become the first bank to create and operate its cryptocurrency, six years after the bank’s CEO Jamie Dimon first lauded blockchain technology’s commercial potential.
JPM Coin runs on the Quorum blockchain, the private, centralized offshoot of the Ethereum blockchain bought by ConsenSys in August. Speaking to CNBD, Georgakopoulos offered an insight into the thinking behind JPM Coin:
“We are launching JPM Coin because we believe we are shifting to the commercialization of those technologies (blockchain and digital currencies), moving from research and development to something that can become a real business.”
JPM Coin Puts XRP Under Threat
The emergence of the coin will concern banking-focused coins like XRP, with JP Morgan’s Interbank Information Network (IIN). It has over 350 members, likely to use the token to transact between themselves. The coin could be a potential death blow to the XRP use case.
And what a shame that would be.
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