JP Morgan became the latest financial institution to invest in blockchain of Bitcoin. The firm is doing it through a partnership with Digital Asset Holdings, a start-up company.
Plans of testing the blockchain technology was announced by the bank for its loan funds. It is doing the experiments to improve the liquidity of the bank's international clients. The financial institution will also search other areas of investment banking where this technology can be applied.
Blockchain is a digital currency platform, the technology that runs Bitcoin online payment system. Apparently, the biggest bank in the United States in terms of assets, wants to use this technology to make many of their transactions faster and more accurate.
This technology functions as a public ledger and stores information on transactions without the need of mediation from a central banking authority. Initially, it only catered to a special market niche.
With this move, JP Morgan intends to start a shift toward this type of information sharing in the banking industry. It has enlisted the help of Digital Asset Holdings to make this happen. This digital technology firm is headed by Blythe Masters, a former JP Morgan executive.
The banking institution is also seeking to adopt this technology for its potential to reduce costs and facilitate transactions. It seems other financial institutions such as Goldman Sachs, are likewise pursuing the same direction.
"From banking and payments to notaries to voting systems to vehicle registrations to wire fees to gun checks to academic records to trade settlement to cataloging ownership of works of art, a distributed shared ledger has the potential to make interactions quicker, less expensive and safer," said a Goldman Sachs analyst to Business Insider last December.
In 2015, Bitcoin's blockchain has enjoyed greater interest and large investments from big banks, private enterprises and governments all over the world. 2016 appears to be the year when it will really take off.
