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JPMorgan Chase Announces JPM Coin, Becomes First Big US Bank With Own Cryptocurrency (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

J.P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon called bitcoin a fraud in September 2017 and said, "You can't have a business where people can invent a currency out of thin air and think that people who are buying it are really smart." By January 2018 he had walked the remarks back but said he still was "not interested that much in the subject at all." In February 2018, J.P. Morgan called cryptocurrencies "risk factors" to its business, something it never previously said. And now J.P. Morgan has become the first U.S. bank to offer its own cryptocurrency. From a report: But don't expect it to become an investment vehicle -- at least for now. The cryptocurrency, called "JPM Coin," is intended for the bank's wholesale payments business that moves $6 trillion around the world daily. As long-time former banker and now cryptocurrency industry figure Alan Silbert said of Dimon in a January 2018 tweet, "Backpedaling is the first step in the program towards walking the path."

35 of 74 comments (clear)

  1. Until they lose the password by jfdavis668 · · Score: 3, Funny

    to the encrypted laptop that contains all the data.

  2. Mr. Robot by MightyYar · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've seen this show.

    --
    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    1. Re:Mr. Robot by radarskiy · · Score: 1

      Sam Esmail needs to stop generating the future.

    2. Re:Mr. Robot by ememisya · · Score: 1

      Say, what was that crypto-currency standard all these technologies are based on? Was it ANSI, or an RFC I can't quite remember. Was there a size limit to hashes? Some type of incremental evolution keeping up with technology perhaps? Was there a way not to be effected by ALL VULNERABILITIES EVER while having your wallet in anything but a TI-82? You know, the consortium who decided why this was a feasible way to represent currently. Room full of wise and smart people with investors. Wait none of that exists? Good job JPMorgan.

    3. Re: Mr. Robot by ememisya · · Score: 1

      :%s/currently/currency/g

  3. woohoo E-Coin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    it's finally here.

  4. Just a ledger method by kalpol · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This sounds like it is just a ledger method to keep track of balance transfers within the business, so not really a currency at all.

    --
    12:50 - press return.
    1. Re:Just a ledger method by timeOday · · Score: 2

      If it is tied to the USD (fixed exchange rate), then I think so too.

    2. Re:Just a ledger method by AlanObject · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This. I am sure that JPM is going to tie the coins to a cash reserve (most likely US$) and there won't be any mining of new coins to create new "wealth." (Note the scare quotes they are significant.) JPM will control the coin supply the same as the Fed controls the US dollar supply.

      This isn't Bitcoin. It is simply a new kind of open ledger using blockchains as kalpol said.

      However it might still be worth doing. People will still be able to trade JPCoins around the world and they will be far more stable than any free-floating cryptocurrency. What will be significant is if the coin owners are permitted to remain anonymous or not. If they are then eventually JPM will run afoul of authorities who don't want JPMCoins to be used to bypass currency controls and doing illegal stuff. I can't imagine JPM going this way but they stand to make a fortune (more of a fortune) if they do just off of transaction fees.

    3. Re:Just a ledger method by thereddaikon · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Seems to me a ledger for transactions is one of the few potential uses of blockchain that actually makes sense.

    4. Re:Just a ledger method by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Financial companies already make new wealth with debt, for every dollar is borrowed the central bank lets them move 90 cents like if they were real cents, so they get their money + interests + new money

    5. Re: Just a ledger method by mino310 · · Score: 4, Informative

      There are over 200 actual https://audacity.onl/ https://findmyiphone.onl/ https://origin.onl/ banks using Ripple right now. Ripple is owned by Santander bank.

    6. Re:Just a ledger method by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      Pretty much yeah, that's how we issue most currency. Wealth is production, so if there's 10% more stuff we need 10% more currency; then if you want 2% inflation, your 110% of currency must be 112.2% of currency.

      There's actually a problem in here: we make 110% as much stuff but have only 102% as many people, so there's 108% as much stuff per person and 110% as many dollars per person. Then we raise minimum wage by the 2% inflation and the poorest worker gets 102% as many dollars instead of 110% as many dollars.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
    7. Re:Just a ledger method by JesseMcDonald · · Score: 2

      Wealth is production, so if there's 10% more stuff we need 10% more currency

      You don't need 10% more currency; you just need the currency, in aggregate, to become 10% more valuable. Which will happen automatically through price adjustments without any change in the supply.

      --
      "The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
    8. Re:Just a ledger method by AlwinBarni · · Score: 1

      That's what cryptocurrencies are - tokens for a ledger, in details: a protocol and set of rules to exchange and approve a ledger, however you might be right, they might not bother with all this tokens creation to reward transactions processing, tokens limits etc.

    9. Re:Just a ledger method by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      To me it sounds like a way to avoid the transaction fees and reporting requirements of moving money around.

    10. Re: Just a ledger method by greylion3 · · Score: 1

      Obviously some of the more important ones with actual volume and merchant acceptance and even privacy options are, among others:
      Bitcoin Cash BCH, Bitcoin BTC, Ethereum ETH, Zcash ZEC, Monero XMR.

      You should read up on the history of Bitcoin Cash / BCH. It's clearly an attempt to capitalize on the Bitcoin name, with very little relevance to the original Bitcoin.
      Avoiding it would be wise.

      --
      Privacy begins with ..
    11. Re:Just a ledger method by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 1

      That actually leads to a market failure. Currency becomes more-valuable, thus people store currency to retain value. There's less and less currency, and wages must go down so people receive less currency. Currency quickly becomes scarce, and you get a recession--that's what 1930, 2008, and the others were.

      Debt compounds this. If a house requires 30,000 hours of total aggregate labor--producing all materials, shipping them, assembling them, etc.--then a middle-income person must work 15 years to purchase a house. That means a loan with a minimum 15-year term. The bank's interest is in having greater purchasing power at the end of the loan term, so the worker must pay more than the house is worth. The home itself will also lose currency price. As a result, people's loans will come at a fixed rate as usual, while their income decreases, making the loan an ever-larger part of their income--or else they simply will never be able to purchase houses and cars.

      In practice, it's more like 10,000 of aggregate labor, and you spend 1/3 of your income on your mortgage, so it's 15 years for the cost of the house and another 5 years or so for the cost of the mortgage. We buy bigger houses than that these days, so we stretch it out across more years; a lot goes to interest, still, in a 30-year versus a 15-year fixed.

      Inflation, fiat, and debt solve most of these problems because they're inherently matters of liquidity and money. We use a 2% inflation target, but 5% would be a better target.

      --
      Support my political activism on Patreon.
  5. shelf life? by sheramil · · Score: 1

    Anyone want to run a book on just how long JPMCoin is a thing?

    ...these our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air...

    1. Re:shelf life? by greylion3 · · Score: 1

      Anyone want to run a book on just how long JPMCoin is a thing?

      As long as it's used internally only, it could theoretically be used indefinitely.

      My guess is, it's going to be used as a more hack-proof bank account system.

      This way, even in the most corrupt branch office, all account balances and transactions are registered in a tamper-proof blockchain.
      I wonder how banks kept all that straight before, without it.

      --
      Privacy begins with ..
    2. Re: shelf life? by jojo310 · · Score: 1

      protocol and set of rules to exchange and approve a ledger, however you might be right, they might not bother with all this tokens creation to reward transactions pro https://xender.pro/ https://discord.software/ https://omegle.onl/

  6. Follow the coins by bobm · · Score: 1

    My take is that IBM is pushing hard to get blockchain working and is really running this. They think that it's a viable product even if it isn't.

    Never underestimate the power of a golf game in getting stupid stuff implemented.

    1. Re:Follow the coins by ceoyoyo · · Score: 2

      Either that or JPM has figured out the advantages to issuing their own currency, er, excuse me, crypto coins.

      Question is which happens first: they lose interest or regulatory agencies gain interest.

  7. Re:Banks & Cryptocurrency go well together. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    criminals also love expensive cars nice clothes and fancy restaurants
    so what

  8. Big deal! by Locke2005 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I haven't yet found any strip clubs that accept cryptocurrency!

    --
    I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
    1. Re:Big deal! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You're not going to the right places. I know 5 in TJ alone.

    2. Re:Big deal! by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I thought Legends was legendary for this?

      Maybe just among people who follow crypto tech.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:Big deal! by raftpeople · · Score: 1

      maybe you should invent strippocurrency

  9. NO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    A ledger of my purchases and transactions is none of their business. There is no reason to link a ledger to any currency except to use it to control people, and we have had quite enough of that thank you very much.

    Crypto currency is a trap being staged by the NWO. If Hitler had crypto currency technology, there wouldn't be a jew left alive in Europe.

    If Pol-pot came to power today and he decided you and your children had to die, you wouldn't be able to buy gas, food, shelter, medicine, guns or ammo. As soon as you stopped at Gas station #27, the ledger will show where you are at. not only would you have to worry about a bunch of stormtroopers showing up, but the purchase would simply be denied.

    Many will argue that the government and central banks can't read the ledger of bitcoin. But they will be able to read the ledger of Fedcoin, or Phoenix, whatever the official one ends up being. As for the rest, the banks will simply be directed to not accept bitcoin, and then the walmarts will no longer accept it, nor will the gas stations, etc. etc. And the other crypto's will have government goons show up and point guns at them to arrest them and seize control.

    There are some indications that Bitcoin was made by the Federal Reserve. We can't truely verify who created it, so it could be them, completely under fed control already.

    Stay away from ALL crypto currencies, or the central bankers will have so much power over you that the ENTIRE U.S. Constitution will in effect be null and void.

  10. So it's just like the simple folk do by Krishnoid · · Score: 1

    The cryptocurrency, called "JPM Coin," is intended for the bank's wholesale payments business that moves $6 trillion around the world daily.

    So it's more like how regular people actually use money -- to buy groceries, pay your friend back for the clubbing night, etc., and not as its own investment vehicle. Except it's, uh 3 6 9, about 10-11 orders of magnitude larger. How adorable.

  11. Hope by techdolphin · · Score: 1

    I hope it does not end up being a subprime cryptocurrency.

    1. Re:Hope by TeknoHog · · Score: 2

      I hope it does not end up being a subprime cryptocurrency.

      Unlike those real cryptocurrencies that use real primes for their cryptography.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  12. Experts in Dubious Securities... by Thelasko · · Score: 1

    JP Morgan: Because if you're going to print money, why not leave it to the experts.

    --
    One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
  13. Small fish in a big pond by Thelaststraw · · Score: 2

    When the big boys get involved in something, you know it's time to get out. They have the resources(bought politicians, computing power, brain power) to fleece everyone.

    --
    Nothing to see here, move along please.
  14. If you can't beat 'em by easyTree · · Score: 1

    Smear them with your shit

    --
    Requiem for the American Dream