JP Morgan and others, under MAS Project Guardian, launched its first live trade on a public blockchain on Wednesday.
Takeaway Points
- MAS announced that JP Morgan and other financial institutions had launched their first live trade on a public blockchain.
- A cross-currency transaction between the Japanese Yen (JPY) and Singapore Dollar (SGD) was conducted without financial intermediaries.
- With the rise in industry engagements, MAS will launch two new industry pilots: Trade Finance and Wealth Management.
First Industry Pilot
In a press release today, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced that the first industry pilot under MAS Project Guardian, JP Morgan, DBS Bank, and SBI Digital Asset Holdings, has completed their first live trades on a public blockchain using Defi.
According to MAS, a cross-currency transaction between the Japanese Yen (JPY) and Singapore Dollar (SGD) was conducted without financial intermediaries.
Tyrone Lobban, the Head of Blockchain Launch and Onyx Digital Assets owned by JP Morgan, explained how it was done. According to him, to reduce the cost of gas fees, they used OxPolygon to trade on Ethereum. He continued saying
“We used @AaveAave so that we could leverage their permissioned pools concept. We deployed a modified version of Aave Arc so that we could set certain parameters such as interest rate and fx rates. You can see the lending pool we deployed here.”
During his speech, the Chief FinTech Officer of MAS, Mr. Sopnendu Mohanty said that the launch by financial industries on public blockchains shows that web3 can change the capital market.
“The live pilots led by industry participants demonstrate that with the appropriate guardrails in place, digital assets and decentralized finance have the potential to transform capital markets. This is a big step towards enabling more efficient and integrated global financial networks.” Mohanty said.
He further added:
“Project Guardian has deepened MAS’ understanding of the digital asset ecosystem and has contributed to the development of Singapore’s digital asset strategy. We look forward to working with more institutions to advance global learning on policies, standards, and best practices for digital asset regulation and responsible innovation.”
What is Project Guardian?
The Project Guardian is a consortium of financial industries that wants to study the economic potential and value-adding use cases of asset tokenization. It was launched by Mr. Heng Swee Keat, Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for Economic Policies, at the Asia Tech and Singapore Summit on May 31, 2022.
After announcing the Project Guardian, MAS created technology standards that support interoperability across digital asset ecosystems, carried out industry pilots with financial institutions and FinTech companies in Singapore and other countries, and studied tokenized transaction regulatory and risk management implications.
MAS will launch two new industry pilots: trade finance and wealth management.
JP Morgan
J.P. Morgan is the oldest and largest bank offering financial services and the first to enter the Metaverse. It opened a lounge called Onyx ( a virtual world based on blockchain technology) in Decentraland.
