JPMorgan, the largest US bank, this week launched JPM Coin (JPMD), a dollar-backed 1:1 deposit token that enables 24-hour instant transfers to institutional investors.
After the announcement, reported by CriptoNoticias, analyst Shanaka Anslem Perera said this “just makes money obsolete.” He says what appeared to be a technological advance hides a fundamental reconfiguration of fiscal power..
Now, “every dollar sent, every settlement waiting, every cross-border payment stuck in SWIFT’s 72-hour limbo is gone,” the experts say. Instead, the new feature “replaces it with something that travels in two seconds, costs a penny, and earns 4-5% along the way.”
analyst It is not a celebration of efficiency; but I think it’s a double edged sword. “JPMD marks the moment when the global financial infrastructure, previously constrained by slow but neutral clearing systems, becomes centralized in the hands of programmable, permissioned, and systemically important institutions,” he explains.
For Perera, the bank now completes a 10-year strategy. “Capturing, adapting, and ultimately controlling the only technology that threatened the monopoly of securities trading.”
Money as a condition code
Once money is converted into code running on private infrastructure, each transaction incorporates the issuer’s rules and interests. “We are not optimizing capitalism; we are rewriting the social contract between people, institutions and states,” Perera warns.
JP Morgan moves $10 trillion a day. JPMD does not add capacity. Change who decides access and under what conditions. “Efficiency is never neutral. It always answers the question: efficient for whom, at whose cost, and under whose control?”, emphasizes the analyst.
“We are not debating whether tokenization will happen, it is inevitable. We are deciding whether it will happen through neutral, democratically controlled infrastructure or through corporate networks,” he added.
banking counterrevolution
The cryptocurrency revolution promised to separate money from state and corporate control. Perera sees JPMD as the culmination of a counter-revolution. “This is exactly the kind of new institutional control of the digital commons that these products are designed to circumvent.”
“This is not a story about technology. This is a story about power. And power concentrated in infrastructure does not spontaneously disperse,” he concluded.
most destructive feature Money in motion, not speed, earns interest.. “The JPMD token is backed by on-balance sheet reserves and generates an annual return of 4-5% based on US Federal Reserve (FED) interest rates. Even after deducting estimated fees of 0.1-0.3%, institutional investors can earn 200-400 basis points more than non-yielding cash or USDC,” Perera details.
The door to the closed circuit opens
JP Morgan has selected Base, Coinbase’s layer 2, to operate. Customers of the bank can now exchange JPMD to USDC on its network. “This is the first step towards opening the circuit,” explained analyst Simon Taylor. “Banks tokenize deposits in a closed system, but now that wall has an open door to the public network.”
The following diagram explains the mechanism for instant exchange between JP Morgan’s JPMD) and the Coinbase exchange’s open stablecoin (USDC).
Taylor explains the mechanism. Businesses move JPMD from JP Morgan lines to Base, exchange it for USDC, and send it to any address. “The base becomes a war room where closed and open systems meet.”
Banks maintain their own custody and compliance. The base provides rails only. “Currently, installation installations are performed with two-second accuracy,” Perera concludes. Oracle failure to supply price between JPMD and USDC Could cause an unprecedented domino effect.
(Tag translation) Cryptocurrency
