Institutional clients will be able to hold and move JPMorgan's dollar deposit token on Ethereum's main network, the bank said Monday, extending a product that debuted on Coinbase's Base network last November. Unlike a stablecoin, it is a claim on a bank deposit, and its public-chain balances are undisclosed.
The largest U.S. bank is putting bank money on the public blockchain that already hosts its own tokenized money-market funds.
Ethereum is the next public network for JPM Coin, JPMorgan Chase's U.S. dollar deposit token, the bank said Monday, with access limited to institutional clients. Kinexys, the JPMorgan unit that runs the product, pointed to Ethereum's "established depth of onchain liquidity and tokenized assets" as the reason for the choice. Holders will be able to send the token directly to one another on Ethereum and on Base, which share the same underlying software standard.
"Tokenized financial infrastructure is no longer theoretical," said Emma Landriault, global head of Kinexys Labs.
By Kinexys's own count, cumulative transactions now exceed $4 trillion, with daily volume averaging around $7 billion. In April the unit cited more than $3 trillion and upward of $5 billion a day, which implies that roughly another $1 trillion has passed through it in about six months, by this publication's arithmetic.
What JPM Coin is
JPM Coin represents U.S. dollar deposits held at JPMorgan. It is not a stablecoin. A stablecoin such as USDC is issued by a non-bank company and backed by a pool of reserves. JPM Coin is a claim on a bank deposit, with the protections and regulation that come with it.
It is also not open to everyone. Access is restricted to counterparties the bank has vetted. It went live on Coinbase's Base network in November 2025, after firms including B2C2, Coinbase and Mastercard ran test transactions in an earlier proof of concept.
Why Ethereum
The move puts JPM Coin where much of the tokenized financial world already sits. JPMorgan's own tokenized money-market funds run on Ethereum, as do many tokenized Treasury products. A deposit token on the same network can, in principle, settle trades in those assets directly, without moving money off the blockchain.
That is the competitive heart of the move. Stablecoins have become the default cash leg for on-chain trading. A bank deposit token offers institutions a form of digital cash that is a direct claim on a regulated bank, which some treasurers and fund managers may prefer.
The bank has not disclosed how much JPM Coin is outstanding on public networks or how much of Kinexys's $7 billion a day runs on them rather than on its private ledger. Most of that volume is likely to be the bank's established payments business.
Market implications
One reading is that this is structural. The largest U.S. bank is standardizing on Ethereum's public network for settlement, which strengthens the argument that Ethereum is becoming financial infrastructure and that bank-issued tokens will take a share of institutional settlement.
A second reading is that it is incremental. The product remains permissioned, its public-chain balances are undisclosed, and adding one more network does not change who can use it.
A third reading is that the real pressure falls on stablecoin issuers such as Circle, whose ambitions in institutional settlement now face a bank competitor on the same rails.
Ether rose about 3% from Sunday afternoon, in line with a broad crypto rally, so the token's price offers no read on the news.
What to watch
A formal release on the bank's website and any disclosure of JPM Coin balances on Ethereum; which institutions transact first; whether other large banks follow; Circle's third-quarter results on Nov. 4; and usage of tokenized funds that settle against JPM Coin. Disclosed public-chain volume would show whether this is a pilot or a shift.