JPMorgan is broadening its blockchain strategy with a plan to build what it calls “regulated, interoperable digital money” for near-instant, secure movement of value across financial markets. A spokesperson told CoinDesk the bank wants to expand JPM Coin beyond Base, Coinbase’s Ethereum layer-2 network, to Digital Asset’s privacy-focused Canton Network, with additional blockchain integrations planned later.
JPM Coin issuance is set to move beyond Base
According to the bank, bringing JPM Coin natively to Canton is part of a wider effort to issue the deposit token across multiple blockchain networks. JPMorgan said native availability on Canton would let institutions on that network receive, transfer and redeem JPMD on a near-instant basis inside a secure and synchronized environment.
JPM Coin is a deposit token representing U.S. dollar deposits held at J.P. Morgan. It gives institutional clients a way to make payments through a digital token recorded on distributed ledgers. The bank did not provide details on specific legal or regulatory hurdles tied to issuing JPM Coin natively on public blockchain infrastructure, but said any expansion would be subject to internal review, risk management and regulatory approval where required.
Public blockchain rails and Kinexys remain separate systems
JPM Coin is already available to JPMorgan’s institutional clients on Base. The bank said it enables secure, near-instant transfers of value on public blockchain infrastructure, though only to whitelisted wallet addresses controlled by institutional clients, a structure designed to preserve compliance and operational control.
JPMorgan drew a clear line between JPM Coin and its private network infrastructure. The bank said JPM Coin has never been offered on private, permissioned infrastructure and is not built on Kinexys. Instead, its separate Kinexys Digital Payments network, launched in 2019, provides Blockchain Deposit Accounts that institutional clients can use for 24/7 cross-border foreign-exchange payments in U.S. dollars, euros and British pounds.
Siemens example shows how the private network is being used
As one example, JPMorgan said Siemens uses Blockchain Deposit Accounts in Frankfurt and New York to carry out near-instant USD-to-EUR cross-border FX payments on Kinexys Digital Payments. The bank said this setup helps Siemens work around limited settlement windows and improves the efficiency and reliability of multi-currency cross-border payments and liquidity management within its treasury platform.
By comparison, JPM Coin as a deposit token runs entirely on public blockchain rails. When a client sends or receives the token, the digital representation of the bank deposit is recorded directly on-chain. Looking ahead, JPMorgan said it plans to add support for more currencies and extend JPM Coin issuance to additional public blockchains as well as its private Kinexys Digital Assets infrastructure, bringing its cash solutions across public and private systems closer together.
The bank added that, just as it expanded Blockchain Deposit Accounts on Kinexys, it intends to broaden the range of currencies available through JPM Coin over time. It also said putting JPM Coin on more blockchains is expected to raise efficiency and unlock liquidity.