JP Morgan’s crypto project draws mixed reaction from industry

J.P. Morgan’s recently announced cryptocurrency project, ‘JPM Coin’ is drawing mixed reactions from the industry.

In a report dated February 14, Bloomberg cited a number of experts who see JPM Coin as a direct competitor of Ripple’s XRP token.

Calling the JPM project as “more evolutionary than revolutionary,” Travis Kling, the Los Angeles-based founder of crypto hedge fund Ikigai Asset Management, noted that the crypto is based on Quorum, a private, permissioned blockchain technology, which is much closer to a Google Sheet than a Bitcoin.

“The project is clearly competing directly with Ripple Labs and their centralized cryptocurrency XRP,” he said.

Tom Shaughnessy, principal at Delphi Digital, echoed similar views and said, “This is a huge slap in the face for Ripple. Ripple’s target market is cross-border payments and remittances and now JPMorgan’s effort is a direct threat.”

However, the crypto project has also drawn criticism with many believing that it is nowhere close to being called a cryptocurrency.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse voiced his views in a tweet saying that the project “misses the point.”

Well-known American economist Nouriel Roubini believes that JPM Coin cannot be even called a “crypto.”

In an online post, Jerry Brito, Executive Director of Coin Center, explains why JPM Coin is not a cryptocurrency.

“The main thing that makes a crypto a crypto is that it is built in such a way that anyone can use it and anyone can participate in its consensus system without seeking permission from anyone else,” he said. “That is certainly not what J.P. Morgan built, nor even what it wants to build…”

Brito further states that the bank should have announced the project as a new interbank settlement network, instead of a coin, adding:

“That framing could have avoided confusion, but I doubt it would have generated as much attention. This is just marketing you might think, but it matters.”