Jamie Dimon: JPM Coin could be a consumer product

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has suggested that JPM Coin, the megabank’s planned U.S. dollar-backed token, could eventually be a consumer product.

According to a CNBC report, at JPMorgan’s annual investor day, Dimon said: “JPMorgan Coin could be internal, could be commercial, it could one day be consumer.” For the foreseeable future, however, the token is likely to serve only business-to-business use cases.

When bank revealed the plan to trial JPM Coin earlier this month, Umar Farooq, the bank’s blockchain lead, described three applications, all internal: replace wire transfers for international payments by large corporate clients; provide instant settlement for securities issuances; and replace U.S. dollars held by subsidiaries of major corporations using JPMorgan’s treasury services.

An FAQ released by JPMorgan at the time hinted at the commercial possibilities, noting that while JPM Coin will run on the bank’s proprietary blockchain Quorum, it also “will be operable on all standard Blockchain networks.”

Dimon is known to be a harsh critic of cryptocurrencies, calling bitcoin a fraud in 2017, then publicly regretting those remarks in 2018, but still warning those who wanted to buy bitcoin to “beware.”

Jamie Dimon: JPM Coin Could ‘One Day’ See Consumer Use, CoinDesk, Feb 27