During the DC Blockchain Summit 2019 being held in Washington, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse spoke about JPM Coin, JP Morgan’s stablecoin.
He first complimented the initiative, but then said that he finds it unlikely that JPM Coin could actually be used by other banks, questioning its usefulness.
Then he said:
“If you give them a dollar for deposits, they’ll give you a JPM Coin that you can then move within the JPM ledger. Wait a minute, just use the dollar! I don’t understand. If you’re just moving within the JPM ledger, and it has to be dollar-to-dollar, one-to-one backing, I don’t understand what problem that solves”.
Brad Garlinghouse on JPM Coin.
"Just use the Dollar?" ???????????? pic.twitter.com/Lwd8VsMx4H
— ӾⱤ₱-₳â‚â± (@XRPAKL) March 6, 2019
Furthermore, Ripple’s CEO pointed out that introducing a closed network today would be like launching AOL after Netscape’s IPO.
According to Garlinghouse it’s a good thing that major financial players such as JP Morgan are also entering this industry, but then he concluded by saying:
“That’s the only nice thing I’m going to say about this”.
JPM Coin could be a direct rival to Ripple, for example, with regard to the use of a cryptocurrency for interbank money transactions. A few days ago, however, Garlinghouse pointed out that, while Ripple has already made agreements with several banks, JP Morgan does not seem to have any at this time.
“I was being interviewed by a guy from Morgan Stanley, and I said ‘So Morgan Stanley will use JPM Coin’? And he said ‘probably not’. So, will Citi use JPM Coin? BBVA? WHAT ABOUT PNC? And the answer is no“.
Moreover, with regard to the proliferation of these bank cryptocurrencies, Ripple’s CEO said:
“So, does that mean we’re going to have all these different coins? Are we back to where we are with lack of interoperability? I don’t get it”.
