The custodians of global financial order have been prominent in crypto news recently. The weekend kicked off with the announcement of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) joining forces with the World Bank to launch a private blockchain coupled with a “quasi-cryptocurrency” for training purposes, then continued with the Spring Meetings of the two organizations’ Boards of Governors in Washington, D.C., which ran throughout the whole week. Although it would be an overstatement to claim that distributed ledgers were particularly conspicuous on the forum’s overall agenda, the program included a series of fintech workshops, as well as at least a couple …

JPMorgan Chase (JPM) is expanding the use of its blockchain technology to help reduce the number of global payments rejected by errors, the Financial Times reported on April 21. The United States financial giant is adding new features to its Interbank Information Network (IIN,) which is now used by more than 220 banks around the world. The technology was initially designed to help institutions share payments data in real time — cutting delays in processing times. John Hunter, JPM’s head of global clearing, said it has built a new feature that can instantly verify whether a payment is heading to …

United States cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase has become the only cryptocurrency business to make it into LinkedIn’s list of the most popular companies for 2019, results confirmed on April 3. The yearly rundown, which ranks company popularity among employees, placed Coinbase at 35 out of a total of 50 shortlisted. LinkedIn ranks contenders according to interest in the company, employee engagement by executives, demand for available jobs and employee retention rate. Different lists are issued for different countries, with Coinbase correspondingly appearing in the U.S. edition. The exchange has previously made it onto LinkedIn lists, such as in September last year, …

A new strain of Trojan malware for Android phones is targeting global users of top crypto apps such as Coinbase, BitPay and Bitcoin Wallet, as well as banks including JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America. The news was reported by technology news outlet The Next Web on March 28. Based on research from prominent cybercrime analytics firm Group-IB, this is reportedly the first time the Trojan — now named “Gustuff” — has been reported or analyzed. The malware is described as being designed for mass infection and is spread by SMS messages with links to load malicious Android package …

French luxury goods giant Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (LVMH) is reportedly working with ConsenSys and Microsoft Azure to develop a blockchain platform for tracking its products, crypto media agency CoinDesk reports on March 26. Dubbed AURA, the blockchain-powered platform is reportedly scheduled to go live in May or June 2019 with two major LVMH subsidiaries: Louis Vuitton and Parfums Christian Dior. Louis Vuitton is French fashion house founded in 1854 and known for its signature LV logo, while Parfums Christian Dior is the perfumery and cosmetics line of other French fashion house Christian Dior. According to the report, the …

Central banks should leave issuance of digital currencies to corporations such as Facebook and JPMorgan, according to a blockchain and financial partner at PwC France, Forbes reports March 22. According to PwC France’s Pauline Adam Kalfon, central banks should stay away from the issuance of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) until large corporations test out the tokenization of fiat currencies themselves. Only when cryptocurrencies are "battle-tested by corporations,” should central banks make a move towards the crypto space, Kalfon argued, adding that it will reduce the likelihood of potentially negative consequences on the economy arising from any central bank issuing …

Ron Karpovich, Global Head of eCommerce Solutions at JPMorgan Chase, stated that there is “more partnership instead of competition” between the financial establishment and crypto disruptors when it comes to the payments space. Karpovich made his remarks during an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box today, March 20. In response to a question from CNBC’s host as to how the banking giant is poised to compete with new and disruptive actors than can leverage blockchain and cryptocurrencies to offer the same services as the old guard, but with lower fees, Karpovich said: “Ultimately behind the scenes, they [crypto innovators] are going …

Ripple (XRP) CEO Brad Garlinghouse says the recently-announced digital asset from United States banking giant JPMorgan Chase lacks the interoperability that would make it a significant innovation. Garlinghouse made his remarks during an interview at the 4th Annual DC Blockchain Summit in Washington D.C. on March 6. As Cointelegraph has reported, JPMorgan Chase announced the forthcoming launch of its new blockchain settlement offering in mid-February: a stablecoin dubbed JPM Coin, to be backed 1:1 by the bank’s USD reserves. Alluding to multiple industry commentators’ suggestions that the bank’s coin could be a direct competitor to Ripple’s XRP, Garlinghouse dismissed the …

Top Stories This Week Nasdaq Begins Listing Brave New Coin’s Bitcoin and Ethereum Price Indexes Nasdaq, the world’s second-largest stock exchange, began its live listing of two crypto price indexes from United States blockchain and crypto market data company Brave New Coin (BNC) this week. The listings, which had been announced earlier this month, are BNC’s Bitcoin Liquid Index (BLX) and Ethereum Liquid Index (ELX). According to the announcement, the indexes will show reference rates for the price of 1 BTC and 1 ETH, quoted in USD and refreshed every 30 seconds. Brave New Coin has also announced future plans …

The research arm of top crypto exchange Binance has published an analysis of JPMorgan Chase’s newly announced stablecoin, arguing that the digital coin brings “minimal direct competition” to Ripple's XRP token in the near term. The study was published on March 1 by Binance Research. As Cointelegraph has reported, JPMorgan Chase announced the forthcoming launch of its new blockchain settlement offering in mid-February: a stablecoin dubbed JPM Coin, to be backed 1:1 by the bank’s USD reserves. As Binance Research notes, the JPM Coin pilot project will initially focus on settlement and value transfer between financial institutions and is to …

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 …

The idea of private blockchains, such as enterprise blockchain platforms, will eventually “fail miserably,” the CEO of Abra said during Fortune’s “Balancing The Ledger” show on Feb. 25. Bill Barhydt, CEO of cryptocurrency wallet and investing app Abra, has argued that the idea of a truly decentralized cryptocurrency contradicts the notion of private blockchains. Unlike public blockchains, such as those of Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), which can be accessed and joined by anyone, private blockchains represent a permissioned network with access controls that restrict who can join, meaning that they operate like a centralized database system. Speaking during the …