Banking giant JPMorgan wants to build its own “regulated, interoperable digital money” that can be moved almost instantly and securely between financial markets, a spokesperson for the bank told CoinDesk.
JPMorgan has already laid out plans to extend JPM Coin deposit tokens beyond Base, the Coinbase-built Ethereum Layer 2 network, to the privacy-focused Canton Network of digital assets, and eventually to additional blockchain platforms, promoting a more interconnected multi-chain payment system for institutional payments.
“By bringing JPM Coin natively to Canton as part of the company’s broader plan to issue JPM Coin on multiple blockchain networks, this will lay the foundation for regulated, interoperable digital money,” the spokesperson said. “With the native availability of JPM Coin, institutions using Canton will be able to receive, transfer and redeem JPMD almost instantly within a secure and synchronized ecosystem.”
JPM Coin is a deposit token. This represents US dollar deposits held at JPMorgan and allows institutional clients to make payments using digital tokens on a distributed ledger.
The bank did not provide details on specific legal or regulatory hurdles for issuing JPM Coin natively on public blockchain infrastructure, but said that “any expansion is subject to internal review, risk management, and regulatory approval where applicable.”
JPM Coin is currently available on Base to JPMorgan’s institutional customers. The bank said it will enable secure and near-instantaneous value transfers on public blockchain infrastructure, but only to whitelisted wallet addresses controlled by institutional investors to ensure compliance and control.
Unlike existing private systems, JPM Coin is not built on JPMorgan’s Kinexys network. “JPM Coin has never been offered on private permissioned infrastructure,” the spokesperson said. Instead, JPMorgan’s separate Kinexys Digital Payments network, launched in 2019, offers blockchain deposit accounts that allow institutional investors to make 24/7 cross-border foreign exchange (FX) payments in US dollars, euros, and pounds sterling.
“For example, Siemens leverages blockchain deposit accounts in Frankfurt and New York to perform near-instantaneous cross-border exchange payments from USD to EUR with Kinexys Digital Payments,” the bank said. “This will enable Siemens’ global businesses to overcome limited payment frameworks and further improve the efficiency and reliability of multi-currency, cross-border payments and liquidity management within the treasury platform.”
In contrast, JPM Coin as a deposit token operates entirely on public blockchain rails. When a client sends or receives tokens, a digital representation of the bank deposit is recorded directly on-chain.
Looking ahead, a JPMorgan spokesperson said they plan to support additional currencies and extend JPM Coin issuance to both the public blockchain network and the private Kinexys digital asset infrastructure. This will integrate the company’s cash solutions across both private and public systems.
“Just like we did with the Kinexys blockchain deposit account, we will gradually expand the currencies we can offer to our institutional customers with JPM Coin,” a spokesperson told CoinDesk. “By offering more currencies and bringing JPM Coin to other blockchains, we can further increase efficiency and free up liquidity.”
