JPMorgan Completes First Public Ledger Transaction With Chainlink, Ondo

JPMorgan, a prominent Wall Street banking institution, has announced the successful completion of its first transaction settlement on a public ledger. This groundbreaking achievement was accomplished in collaboration with cryptocurrency entities Chainlink and Ondo. The pilot transaction, executed through JPMorgan's Kinexys Digital Payments platform, involved tokenized U.S. Treasuries and was settled on Ondo Chain’s testnet.

This transaction introduces the Delivery versus Payment (DvP) model, which synchronizes payment and asset transfers to mitigate counterparty risk and settlement delays. The deal utilized Kinexys, JPMorgan’s blockchain division, to manage the payment leg, while the asset side consisted of Ondo Finance’s tokenized short-term Treasury fund (OUSG). These blockchain-based treasuries are designed to offer exposure to U.S. government debt with the benefits of real-time, transparent settlement.

Kinexys, which processes over $2 billion in daily transaction volume, connected its private network to the public Ondo Chain, marking a significant shift from the bank’s historically closed-network approach. Chainlink’s secure cross-chain orchestration infrastructure, known as the Chainlink Runtime Environment (CRE), facilitated the atomic, cross-network settlement. CRE coordinated the transfer across the permissioned Kinexys system and the public Ondo Chain, ensuring real-time finality, enhanced liquidity, and reduced counterparty risk.

Sergey Nazarov, Chainlink co-founder, highlighted the growing recognition among global institutions of the potential in the public chain community. He emphasized the need for reliable technical standards and cross-chain connection capabilities to successfully transact in this new environment. This transaction is part of JPMorgan's strategic roadmap, driven by the bank's long-term vision rather than recent political changes or investor enthusiasm for cryptocurrency.

While JPMorgan's CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been critical of Bitcoin, he has acknowledged the potential use cases of blockchain technology in the financial sector. This transaction is not JPMorgan's first venture beyond its private network; the bank has previously tested blockchain integrations, including a 2024 pilot with Siemens Digital. This shift by the banking giant comes as the United States moves toward more favorable cryptocurrency regulations.