In past years, we reported on the nascent rise of J.P. Morgan’s JPM Coin, the global bank’s own stablecoin cryptocurrency.
Generally, those who were following this phenomenon saw JPM Coin as yet another play to compete with centralized cryptocurrency assets using branded stablecoins tied to a company’s operations.
Now, however, we’re getting a bit of a clearer picture about how JPM wants to use its coin from one who would know: Umar Farooq, the head of JPM’s Onyx blockchain team.
“We are getting into the programmability of JPM Coin,” Farooq recently told Coindesk, according to reporting by Ian Allison. “Actually programming what money can do for you, whether it’s conditional payments, whether it’s things like tax assessments. That’s all very rule based and, in the past, you would have to send specific instructions to a bank like JPMorgan. We increasingly want you to be able to program these things, and actually tell the money what to do.”
JPM Coin, which operates with the company’s Liink payment network, is reportedly used for securities settlement and other types of operations now.
However, in the future, it could be much more useful in different kinds of payment and transaction automation, or in aspects of virtual money management.
Allison points out that the JPM coin was built on a particular blockchain – Ethereum, the runner-up to Bitcoin in terms of notable cryptocurrency networks, was built to handle smart contracts, which makes it ideal for JPM’s programmable money scheme.
This issue also sheds light on the difference between two emerging altcoins that have each been doing well this season (for very different reasons) – Cardano and Dogecoin.
Like Bitcoin, Dogecoin (DOGE) is mainly a payment medium and not a sophisticated chain for building blockchain automations (unlike Bitcoin, it was created on a whim and widely considered a joke.)
Cardano, however, is being developed by a group of researchers who may find it useful to build more functionality into that particular blockchain. Think about that vast difference as you follow various coins, because the utility of an asset will be a factor in determining where it goes long-term.