JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has said that the company’s new cryptocurrency JPM Coin could have a consumer use one day, CNBC reported on Feb. 26.
During a question-and-answer session, Dimon reportedly stated that “JP Morgan Coin could be internal, could be commercial, it could one day be consumer.” The coin would purportedly find its use for retail payments.
United States banking giant JPMorgan Chase announced plans to launch its own cryptocurrency in a U.S. banking first on Feb. 14, in a bid to increase settlement efficiency, initially within three of its operations. JPM Coin will at first focus on international settlements by major corporations, helping speed up transactions that currently take a day or longer using extant options such as SWIFT.
Following the announcement, JPM Coin has found both advocates and opponents in the cryptocurrency community. This week, Bill Barhydt, CEO of cryptocurrency wallet and investing app Abra, suggested that JPMorgan Chase misrepresented their new initiative, stating that it seems more like “a ledger meant for settling trades” than a coin. Barhydt also stated that “if it really is a private blockchain and private coin, I’m guessing it’s a complete waste of time.”
Ripple (XRP) CEO Brad Garlinghouse also said that JPM Coin “misses the point” of cryptocurrency. Directly following the announcement, Garlinghouse responded on Twitter that “as predicted, banks are changing their tune on crypto. But this JPM project misses the point — introducing a closed network today is like launching AOL after Netscape’s IPO. Two years later, and bank coins still aren’t the answer.”
In contrast, co-founder of Reddit Alexis Ohanian argued that the recent move by JPMorgan is just another indication that there is real innovation happening since speculators have left he sector. While saying that the upcoming release of JPM Coin could be a good thing, Ohanian still noted that Dimon had previously called major cryptocurrency Bitcoin (BTC) a scam.
