JPMorgan Has Quietly Rebooted the Blockchain Tech Behind Its JPM Coin

JPMorgan's technology teams spread across three continents have been busy updating the bank's Quorum blockchain platform over the past six months, replacing key parts of its privacy-enhancing components.

According to JPMorgan Quorum lead Oli Harris, the Microsoft partnership is also a potential stepping stone to a long-contemplated spin-out of the open source software project.

Over the last six months, technologists spread across London, Singapore and the U.S. have "Rebooted" Quorum, the megabank's private version of the ethereum blockchain, said Oli Harris, JPM's head of Quorum and crypto-assets strategy.

"It's open source software, available on Github and maintained by JPMorgan on behalf of everyone using Quorum," Harris went on to explain.

"The more users of Quorum, the better it is for everyone, because we can help with standardization and creating even more robust tech suite."

Stepping back, Quorum was launched in early 2017, whereby the tech created an instant frisson of excitement by officially connecting the bank with ethereum and also adding an ambitious dose of blockchain privacy via zero-knowledge proofs.

Following blockchain program lead Amber Baldet's departure from the bank in April 2018, there was a brief period when Quorum's future looked uncertain.

In addition to "All the go-to-market support, which is about getting new customers using Quorum" that JPMorgan and Microsoft are working on together, Harris said the two firms' engineers are now collaborating, streamlining node deployment and abstracting away raw complexity.

Foremost among them is JPM Coin, which is essentially tokenized cash on the Quorum ledger.

Harris pointed to Dromaius, a debt issuance platform on Quorum, l.aunched by Christine Moy., head of JPMorgan's Blockchain Centre of Excellence at Consensus last year.