JPMorgan is expanding JPM Coin to Ethereum, according to a Bloomberg report relayed by Cointelegraph. The token represents US dollar deposits held at the bank and lets eligible clients move funds within seconds, at any hour. Although it will live on a public network, it stays restricted to approved institutional participants.
A public chain with a private guest list
The key design choice is the split between where the token is issued and who may hold it. Ethereum supplies the shared infrastructure, while JPMorgan keeps control of access. That differs from a stablecoin, which anyone can typically hold once issued. JPM Coin is a claim on a bank deposit, so it stays inside the bank’s client base and its compliance perimeter.
Emma Landriault, global head of Kinexys Labs, said JPMorgan picked Ethereum for its liquidity and existing use among clients. That is a practical reason, not an ideological one. The bank is going where its customers already have wallets, tooling and assets, rather than asking them to adopt a closed system.
Who uses it and for what
Landriault described two groups. Crypto companies could use the token for blockchain payments, and financial institutions could use it to settle trades and post collateral. Both uses matter for tokenized markets. A tokenized asset is only useful if its cash leg can settle on the same rails, and collateral that moves in seconds, around the clock, is a different proposition from collateral that waits for banking hours.
The multichain pattern
Ethereum is not the first stop. JPMorgan rolled JPM Coin out on Base, the Ethereum layer-2 network built by Coinbase, in November 2025 and said then that it planned to support more public blockchains. In January it announced plans to bring the token to the Canton Network. Cointelegraph also points to coverage of Argentine banks testing the coin to speed up settlements.
Taken together, the moves suggest a strategy of meeting clients on several networks instead of betting on one. For developers, that raises a familiar question: how does one issuer keep a consistent token across chains with different properties? The sources do not say how JPMorgan will handle that, so it remains an open point.
What to watch next
- Whether JPMorgan publishes details on onboarding, fees and which clients get access first. Cointelegraph said it had not received a response from the bank at publication.
- Whether other large banks issue their own deposit tokens on public chains, which would test how interoperable permissioned tokens can be.
- Whether collateral posting and trade settlement become real volume, rather than pilots.
- Which further public networks follow Base, Ethereum and Canton.
The wider signal is that the largest US bank by market value now treats public blockchains as settlement infrastructure for its own deposits. The access limits show that the bank wants the technology without giving up the controls that define regulated banking. How well that compromise scales will decide whether deposit tokens become a standard tool or stay a niche product for a select client list.