JP Morgan introduces Zether protocol for private Ethereum transactions

The software development team at J.P. Morgan Chase, the world's sixth largest financial institution with $30 trillion of assets under custody, created a new privacy feature for Ethereum protocol-based blockchain networks.

The recently developed privacy feature allows users to hide transaction details including the amount being transferred and the address of the sender.

According to CoinDesk, J.P. Morgan's software design team has developed an extension to the Zether protocol, which specifies how to implement a confidential Ethereum-based payment system.

The investment bank's Zether protocol extension is reportedly compatible with several other smart contract-enabled platforms.

J.P. Morgan's management also mentioned that it would most likely be integrating the new privacy feature with its proprietary permissioned Quorum blockchain, which was developed using the Ethereum protocol.

Notably, J.P. Morgan's DLT-based privacy feature uses zero-knowledge proofs, which only disclose as much information as is absolutely necessary to verify certain details related to transactions.

"In the basic Zether, the account balances and the transfer amounts are concealed but the participants' identities are not necessarily concealed. So we have solved that. In our implementation, we provide a proof protocol for the anonymous extension in which the sender may hide herself and the transactions recipients in a larger group of parties."

Harris also explained that Zether protocol's privacy-focused payments architecture uses an account-based system, which is similar to how the Ethereum network manages transactions.

In addition to launching a DLT-enabled privacy feature, the management at J.P. Morgan is reportedly working with around 220 other financial institutions on various initiatives related to its Quorum-based Interbank Information Network.

According to J.P. Morgan, its Quorum-based DLT network will be open-sourced in the foreseeable future.