JPMorgan's Blockchain Products, Explained by Ex-JPM Tech Leads

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 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 products, from Quorum to JPM Coin.We worked on - and learned from - the challenges of adapting existing public blockchains for enterprise use, including what it takes to successfully lead financial institutions toward decentralized technology.

We left the JPMorgan team in 2016 to found Kadena, a hybrid blockchain platform company, and apply our knowledge to deliver on the promise of blockchain.

Following our assessment, we decided to build our own blockchain within JPMorgan.

JPMorgan then turned the emerging technology group into the Blockchain Center of Excellence.

JPM Coin becomes far more impactful when it connects to a public blockchain network through a hybrid platform, one that is capable of interoperating between JPMorgan's private ledgers and a secure, scalable public blockchain.

Main takeaways from JPMorgan's blockchain groupOne of the biggest things we gained from our careers in financial technology and regulatory agencies was an understanding of how financial systems actually work, along with what is needed to drive adoption of blockchain forward.

Despite the technological and business challenges facing Quorum and JPM Coin, it is important to give credit to JPMorgan for being a pioneer in the world of enterprise blockchain.

Prior to starting the company with Will Martino, Stuart worked at JPMorgan in the Blockchain Center of Excellence, where he led and developed the bank's first blockchain, Juno.