This week, JP Morgan Chase’s digital currency, the JPM Coin, will be used for international payments for the first time by a large company. The JP Morgan subsidiary Onyx has now been founded for JPM Coin and their other blockchain projects.
Over a year ago, the largest US bank, JP Morgan Chase, began developing its own digital currency. According to CNBC, this week, JPM Coin will be used by a major company for the first time, which has prompted the big bank to set up a new subsidiary for its blockchain projects.
JP Morgan's Interbank Network
The JP Morgan subsidiary Onyx now has the task of further developing and selling all of JP Morgans blockchain projects to customers. The largest project is the Liink network, formerly known as the Interbank Information Network; a blockchain network for international, interbank payments. More than 400 banks in 78 different countries are already part of this network. It built on the Ethereum-based platform Quorum, which was handed over to blockchain company Consensys two months ago.
The JPM Coin, which drives this network, is now being used by a major international technology company for round-the-clock cross-border payments. JP Morgan did not want to reveal the name of the company, but apparently other customers are already on board. This is the first time that the bank's blockchain project is being used by other companies for payments.
"Onyx has been established because we believe we are moving to a phase of commercialization of these technologies. We are moving from research and development, to something that can become a real business," said Takis Georgakopoulos, Head of Wholesale Payments JP Morgan, in an interview with CNBC.
Position of the major bank on Bitcoin
In September 2017, long-time JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon called Bitcoin a "fraud that will soon collapse". He further said that he would immediately fire any JP Morgan trader who tried to buy Bitcoin.
However, this May, JP Morgan started working together with the U.S. crypto exchanges Coinbase and Gemini in a way that was previously unimaginable. Just a few months later, they published an analysis on Bitcoin, which found longevity as an asset class for the crypto currency. According to Business Insider, last week, JP Morgan expressed that the opinion that Bitcoin could compete with gold as an alternative currency.
"Crypto-currencies are valuable not only because they serve as an investment, but also because of their usefulness as a means of payment. In the future, the more economic actors that accept crypto currencies as means of payment, the higher their use and value will be. The long-term upside potential for Bitcoin is considerable, as we believe that as an "alternative" currency, it will compete more intensely with gold, as Millennials become a more prominent part of the investor universe over time." - JPMorgan Chase
