Prominent figures from a range of long-established companies found greener pastures in the blockchain realm in 2019. From BlackRock to Goldman Sachs, and from HSBC to the SEC, traditional industries saw some of their top personnel leave for new prospects in cryptocurrency over the past year. Early 2019 Frigid winter conditions in the crypto market failed to dissuade career moves into the industry. Despite the bearish market conditions of early 2019, many saw fit to join the blockchain movement and leave their familiar jobs behind. Tron hired David Labhart as the company’s first chief compliance officer. Labhart previously worked as …

The United States’ largest bank believes interest will be high in CME Group’s new Bitcoin (BTC) options when they launch on Jan. 13. In a note from Jan. 10 quoted by Bloomberg on Friday, a group of analysts at JPMorgan Chase led by Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou noted interest in CME’s existing Bitcoin futures had spiked in the run-up to the release. “High anticipation” of Bitcoin options On the shift in investor behavior, JPMorgan summarized: “This unusually strong activity over the past few days likely reflects the high anticipation among market participants of the option contract.” The events mark a contrast to …

United States-based cryptocurrency brokerage BitOoda has secured $7 million funding from major investors including former senior investment exec at JPMorgan. Founded in 2017, BitOoda positions itself as a digital asset financial services platform that combines digital finance and applied science. Investors are former execs from British Petroleum, JPMorgan and S&P Global Platts According to an official announcement on Dec. 23, BitOoda’s new seed round featured founder of international energy analytics firm PIRA Energy Gary Ross, who is also a former head of global oil analytics and chief energy economist at S&P Global Platts. Other investors included Roy Salame, former managing …

More than 200,000 Robinhood clients have already expressed their intent to use its new fractional stock trading app announced yesterday. Vladimir Tenev, co-founder at Robinhood, said that the clients were “already in line” for the app, considering the early signs as “really promising,” CNBC reports Dec. 13. After Robinhood’s user base recently crossed 10 million accounts, the firm is now valued at $7.6 billion and plans to expand its business to the United Kingdom, according to recent data. Robinhood users can buy slices of Amazon shares and ETFs for just $1 Robinhood, a major California-based financial services firm that is …

JPMorgan’s blockchain-based payment network will launch in Japan in early 2020, Cointelegraph Japan reports on Dec. 10. Based on JPMorgan’s in-house blockchain platform Quorum, the Interbank Information Network (IIN) intends to accelerate payment transactions as well as address major challenges of sharing data between banks. Bloomberg reports that more than 80 Japanese banks have expressed their intent to join the platform. Japanese banks now account for more than 20% of the 365 total global members that announced their participation since September 2019, accounting for the largest portion of participants from any single country. Daizaburo Sanai, an executive director at the …

JPMorgan Chase — whose CEO, Jamie Dimon, once notably expressed skepticism over cryptocurrency — was actually one of the first financial institutions to “learn to love the blockchain.” In 2015, the bank created a division dedicated to exploring emerging technology such as blockchain. We were two of the first members of the JPMorgan blockchain team. We built some of its earliest blockchain technology and vetted other blockchain providers for the bank’s strategic investment and adoption. In this article, we’ll discuss the technology we developed during our time at the bank and our insights into the current suite of JPMorgan blockchain …

Major global investment bank JPMorgan has developed a new solution for derivatives designed to speed up cash and collateral transfers. The tool was developed in partnership with California-based fintech firm Baton Systems and aims to enable the real-time movement of transfers to multiple clearinghouses, the firm announced Nov. 14. The current process requires collateral custodians to manually coordinate multiple systems and reports. Integrated with JPMorgan’s proprietary automation system, the new solution reportedly eliminates manual intervention in the collateral process and therefore expedites the collateral workflow. According to the announcement, the platform automates margining and collateral flows and allows users to …

Singapore's central bank and state investment firm have created a prototype multi-currency blockchain-based payments network together with JPMorgan. A Nov. 11 report from The Business Times indicates that the prototype is designed to enable payments denominated in different currencies to be completed on the same network. Interfaces with other blockchain networks The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) — the city state’s de facto central bank — led the development of the new solution, working in conjunction with state investment firm Temasek Holdings and the United States’ largest bank, JPMorgan Chase. The latter has acted in the capacity of infrastructure provider …

The Kadena network, which is led by JPMorgan blockchain veterans, has gone live on Monday, with the firm announcing a new $20 million token sale. Kadena mainnet launch unlocks mining Kadena coins According to an announcement on Nov. 4, Kadena has launched its mainnet Chainweb alongside the Kadena token wallet Chainweaver. The firm is also planning to carry out its third token sale from Nov. 5–Nov. 22. As specified on Kadena’s website, the launch of Kadena’s mainnet means that miners can participate in the Kadena public blockchain network and mine for real Kadena coin. Co-founded in 2016 by early JPMorgan …

JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has said that Facebook’s not-yet-released Libra stablecoin is “a neat idea that will never happen.” Dimon delivered his comments during a speech at the Institute of International Finance conference on Friday, BNN Bloomberg reported on Oct. 18. Dimon said that the idea behind Libra is not unique and further turned the conversation to his company’s own stablecoin, JPM Coin, revealing that JPMorgan is spending over $11 billion on technological developments this year. JPM Coin vs. Libra Dimon thus cemented his previous statements about Facebook’s coin, when he claimed that Libra does not pose a threat …

Dubai-based real estate giant Emaar Properties has released its new blockchain token-based referral and loyalty platform. Real monetary value Emaar, which developed the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, as well as the Dubai Mall, is planning to launch the EMR token for rewarding its customers, local publication Arabian Business reports Oct. 17. Based on JPMorgan’s blockchain platform Quorum, EMR tokens will be redeemable not only within Emaar’s real estate network, including hotels, ecommerce operations and malls, but also can be traded with other users, the report says. According to Arabian Business, both the blockchain platform and EMR token are …

OCBC has become the first Singapore-based bank to join JPMorgan Chase’s interbank blockchain network. According to a Business Times Singapore report on Sept. 20, a total of 134 banks from the Asia-Pacific region are now participants in the Interbank Information Network (IIN). OCBC is the second-largest bank in South East Asia by assets and among the larger financial institutions in Asia-Pacific. 343 banks have joined JPMorgan’s network since 2018 A total of 343 banks have joined IIN since 2018. The network’s largest national bloc is Japan, where 80 banks are participants. IIN first launched as a pilot in 2017, designed …