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The former head of JPMorgan’s blockchain operation has said that banks will start to trade cryptocurrency sooner than people think.
Banks Are Slowly Changing Their Positions
Amber Baldet, a former JPMorgan executive, was speaking during CNBC’s ‘Power Lunch‘ today where she said that banks trading digital currencies was ‘coming sooner than people think.’ She added:
“But even where the will is, the legal and regulatory framework is challenging.”
Notably, despite investor interest in the market, particularly in the last year, banks have remained steadfast and have stayed away from the industry. It’s only in the last few months that the finance sector has started to turn its attention to the sector.
Earlier this month, Goldman Sachs announced that it was introducing a cryptocurrency version of the U.S. dollar. According to the report, it stated that the introduction of blockchain-based computing and cryptographic assets had brought in a new era of the ‘open internet.’ It added that ‘a price-stable medium of exchange and store of value is missing,’ which is needed for ‘global financial interoperability to function reliably and consistently.’
Bank are starting to consider the use of digital currencies within their platforms, but, according to Baldet custody is still a significant challenge.
Since Baldet announced her departure from JPMorgan in April questions have arisen as to what she will be doing next. During the Consensus conference in New York, Baldet who was listed under Fortune’s 40 Under 40 list, unveiled her new startup, Clovyr, which claims to offer something similar to the app store, but for projects built on the blockchain.
She said:
“There’s no way to discover what’s out there right now, there’s no Google for finding applications. The ability to discover apps is helpful but the ability to build them is also encompassed in there.”
Earlier today it was reported that JPMorgan was hiring a 29-year-old to head its crypto-assets strategy. Such a move from the Wall Street bank represents a significant turnaround for the banking giant, and signals that it may be considering taking the sector seriously enough to warrant further inspection of it.
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