Banking giant JPMorgan Chase has confirmed the completion of a blockchain payment test amid orbiting satellites. The incredible experiment is in partnership with Danish firm GomSpace, bank executives told Reuters.
The study examines how Internet of Things (IoT) technology can be integrated into payment processing. Banks like JPMorgan are trying to leverage technology primarily related to consumer electronics. According to Umar Farooq, CEO of JPMorgan’s blockchain company Onyx, the test shows that blockchain technology can power processes amidst everyday objects. He adds that the study points to the possibility of setting up a marketplace where satellites can provide information to each other in return for payment.
Farooq explained the motivation behind the space test:
“The idea was to explore IoT payments in a fully decentralized form. There is no place more decentralized and independent of the earth than space. Second, we’re ‘geeks’ and it was a lot more fun testing the IoT.”
In the real world, IoT payments can be powerful devices like smart fridges that order consumer goods like milk on digital retail platforms and can pay.
JPMorgan’s “Aggressive” Blockchain Approach
The test highlights JPMorgan’s aggressive approach to exploring blockchain capabilities in banking. Alongside founding Onyx, JPMorgan launched its own distributed ledger platform called Quorum, but sold it to blockchain company Consensys. In addition, the bank has a digital currency called JPM Coin.
While there is a lot of blockchain work, JPMorgan is doing more research before mass commercialization. Farooq used the phrases:
“When you think of blockchain, we’re either somewhere in the pit of disappointment or fast past the hype curve. So at JPMorgan we stayed relatively quiet until we were ready to scale and commercialize the technology.”
The bank argues that its interest in blockchain is to alleviate the pain points of traditional money transfer systems. Most importantly, JPMorgan’s blockchain activities are acting as a catalyst to bring cryptocurrencies into the mainstream.