JPMorgan brings JPM Coin deposit token to Ethereum mainnet after Base

JPMorgan has brought JPM Coin (JPMD), its USD deposit token for institutional clients, to the Ethereum mainnet. Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, the bank's blockchain business unit, said in a press release on Oct. 19 local time that it had extended JPM Coin to Ethereum, the Layer 1 blockchain network. The move adds a second public blockchain about 11 months after the token went live in November last year on Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 network built by Coinbase.

The cumulative and daily figures cover the entire Kinexys platform, not JPM Coin alone, and are based on the company's internal data. JPMorgan did not disclose how much JPM Coin has been issued.

A bank deposit carried onto a blockchain

JPMorgan describes JPM Coin not as a separately issued digital currency but as a digital representation of dollar deposits held at the bank, placed on a public blockchain. Unlike stablecoins such as Tether (USDT) or USDC, it carries the credit risk profile of commercial bank money and operates within existing regulatory deposit frameworks. Clients deposit dollars into a Blockchain Deposit Account (BDA), convert them into JPM Coin and redeem them back into dollars whenever they choose. The company said there are no lock-up periods.

It is not open to everyone. Although it sits on a public blockchain, only institutions vetted and approved by JPMorgan can send or receive it. The use cases the company highlighted are:

• Cross-border payments
• Intraday liquidity transfers between accounts
• Posting collateral for securities transactions on-chain
• Programmable payments that execute automatically when set conditions are met

A year on Base, now Ethereum itself

JPMorgan began a proof of concept on Base in June 2025, during which crypto liquidity provider B2C2, Coinbase and Mastercard completed test issuance and redemption. At the official launch on Nov. 12 that year, the company billed itself as the "first bank" to issue a USD deposit token on a public blockchain. Mastercard connected JPM Coin to its Mastercard Token Network. With the expansion, institutional clients can now send JPM Coin to one another directly across Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains, including Base and Ethereum.

Kinexys cited "Ethereum's established depth of onchain liquidity and tokenized assets" as the reason for its choice. After J.P. Morgan Asset Management launched tokenized money market funds (MMFs) on Ethereum earlier this year, the bank has now put a cash token on the same chain.

"Tokenized financial infrastructure is no longer theoretical. It's already restructuring liquidity, settlement, and digital asset workflows."

Emma Landriault, Global Head of Kinexys Labs

Matthew Dawson, co-founder of Ethereum Institutional, said: "It's a clear signal that institutional finance is moving onto public, verifiable infrastructure."

KB Kookmin Bank uses the private network

JPM Coin builds on the Blockchain Deposit Account (BDA) network that Kinexys has run on its private blockchain since before its public-chain push. On June 29, Kinexys said it had added Australian dollar, Hong Kong dollar, Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi and Singapore dollar accounts to that network, bringing the total number of supported currencies to eight, alongside the existing U.S. dollar, euro and British pound. JPM Coin on public chains is currently available only in U.S. dollars.

Among Korean banks, KB Kookmin Bank is the first to use the private network. JPMorgan announced on Sept. 2 that Kookmin would launch an import-export corporate payment service built on the BDA network. The service will be offered at the bank's domestic branches in Korea and its Singapore branch, support remittances to 10 countries including the U.S., Singapore, Saudi Arabia and India, and start with U.S. dollar transfers. JPMorgan said settlement times could be cut significantly for trades with the U.S. and the Middle East, where time zones and business days differ. The service runs on the private network, not on JPM Coin on a public blockchain.

The Ethereum contract's supply is still zero

The Ethereum contract that JPMorgan lists on its JPM Coin page was deployed on Oct. 19 at 3:52 p.m. KST. As of 7:30 a.m. KST on Oct. 21, its total supply was zero. At the same time, the total supply of the Base contract stood at about 1,001,000 JPMD. The company warned that tokens with the same or a similar name at different contract addresses are not affiliated with JPMorgan.

JPM Coin is not listed on any exchange, so retail investors in Korea cannot buy or sell it. Ether (ETH) traded at 3,274,000 won on Upbit at 7:33 a.m. KST on Oct. 21, up 1.1% from the previous day. At the same time it was at $2,457.88 on Binance, up 2.1% over 24 hours, with the kimchi premium (the gap between prices on Korean exchanges and global markets) at about 0.1% on Upbit.