As more organizations consider branded stablecoins, a recent JPMorgan Chase trademark application has fueled speculation that the bank is gearing up for a stablecoin launch.
The document filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office seeks to trademark JPMD, which has been considered to stand for JPMorgan Dollar. The application states that the bank is pursuing this trademark to carry out crypto and digital assets services such as trading, transfers, and payment processing.
Although JPMorgan Chase has not yet confirmed anything, many in the crypto industry quickly took the filing as a sign that a stablecoin is on the way from the largest bank in the United States.
A Strong Proponent
This isn’t a stretch. JPMorgan Chase has been an early adopter and strong proponent for digital assets technologies. The institution launched one of the world’s first bank-operated blockchains, Onyx—a platform later rebranded to Kinexys—to bring technologies like blockchain and tokenization to mainstream financial services.
The platform’s crypto payment settlement system, JPM Coin, is a cryptocurrency that banks use to perform foreign exchange conversions on the blockchain. One of the initial use cases for the crypto, which was also rebranded as Kinexys Digital Payments, was to facilitate USD to euro conversions.
More recently, Kinexys signed a deal with India’s Axis Bank to allow the bank’s enterprise clients to send and receive USD transfers both domestically and cross-border in real-time.
A Solo Stablecoin
JPMorgan has strong digital assets underpinnings, but recent indications were that the bank wasn’t pursuing a solo stablecoin. In fact, The Wall Street Journal reported that Citi, Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo were considering issuing a joint stablecoin.
Whether or not JPMorgan decides to go at it alone, it seems clear that major financial institutions around the world are destined to enter the roughly $250 billion stablecoin market. This trend is spreading outside of the financial services industry. Walmart and Amazon recently signaled that they are considering brand-specific stablecoin launches of their own.
This news raised concerns that stablecoin payments to the two largest retailers in the world could remove significant volume from the traditional financial system, which is likely a reason that banks are working toward stablecoins of their own.
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