JP Morgan has completed its inaugural transaction on a public blockchain, signaling the financial giant’s growing engagement with the Web3 ecosystem. On Wednesday, the global bank settled a transaction involving tokenized U. S. Treasuries on Ondo Finance, utilizing Chainlink to facilitate connectivity between private and public networks, according to a joint statement from the involved companies. This initiative represents the latest advancement in JP Morgan’s decentralized finance project, Kinexys—a platform designed to bridge the divide between traditional finance and DeFi. “The debut transaction…isn’t just a major milestone, it’s a statement about the future of finance, ” Ondo Finance CEO Nathan Allman said Thursday in a statement shared with Decrypt. JP Morgan and Chainlink did not immediately respond to Decrypt’s requests for comment. Commenting to Decrypt, Colin Cunningham, head of tokenization at Chainlink Labs, pointed out that JP Morgan’s transaction marked “the first time a major global bank has connected its core payment systems to a public blockchain. ” “It’s a foundational step toward a future where real-world assets like U. S. Treasuries can move seamlessly across public and private chains, ” Cunningham wrote.

“What’s especially powerful here is that JP Morgan’s payments chain is already proven at scale and supported by a global institutional user base—which means this isn’t just a test, it’s a model for real adoption. ” JP Morgan’s recent foray into Web3 coincides with the growing traction of real-world asset (RWA) tokenization, especially among institutional investors. Data from DeFi Llama indicate that the total value locked in RWAs on blockchains exceeded $12 billion at the time of writing, distributed across more than 80 decentralized finance platforms. Meanwhile, BlackRock’s USD Institutional Digital Liquidity Fund holds nearly $3 billion in assets, reflecting an approximate 19% increase over the past month as institutional investors continue to allocate funds into tokenized treasuries, according to data provider rwa. xyz. JP Morgan has been experimenting with distributed ledger technology since at least 2019, when it introduced a private blockchain called JPM Coin. Later rebranded as Kinexys, the platform has handled roughly $2 billion in daily transaction volumes and accrued $1. 5 trillion in underlying assets of derivatives contracts, JP Morgan stated last year. Built on distributed ledger technology, the decentralized platform aims to enable near real-time, 24/7 cross-border transactions while reducing transaction costs for developers and traders, among other features. JP Morgan is one of several financial institutions increasing their involvement in Web3 recently. Earlier this month, Citi announced a partnership with SDX to tokenize private company shares for wealthy investors. UPDATED (May 14, 2025, 2:39 p. m. ): Includes added quote from Cunningham.