JP Morgan recently acquired a stake in Blockdeamon — the world’s largest blockchain infrastructure company for node management and staking — and which also includes the Kraken crypto exchange, Goldman Sachs, and SoftBank.
According to Blockdaemon, JPMorgan (a Wall Street bank) now joins Tiger Global (a venture capital giant) in acquiring a stake in blockchain technology, adding the move is part of JPMorgan’s mad dash for cryptocurrency exposure.
Umar Farooq, CEO of Onyx — JPMorgan’s blockchain unit — said investing in Blockdeamon is a step toward adopting blockchain technology (that’s behind Bitcoin)
“Making a strategic investment in Blockdeamon is a logical next step in our multilayered approach to investing in blockchain technology and we are pleased to participate in the funding round as they continue to grow and scale their business”.
JPMorgan leads in blockchain hiring
The news of JPMorgan acquiring a stake in blockchain technology comes at a time when the US bank is leading other Wall Street banks in blockchain hiring craze — and doubling down on investing in the distributed Ledger technology this year.
The size of the stake, which JPMorgan bought, is yet to be disclosed.
In the past year, digital currency prices have scaled to newer heights, as institutional investors and banks find ways to access asset class.
Morgan Stanley, Goldman, and JPMorgan are among the US banks rushing to invest in blockchain technology — as they consider offering crypto trading to clients. If they do offer the service, their investment will help forge a great crypto-asset team.
Blockdeamon to expand its global presence
Blockdeamon — which banks and most crypto exchanges use to manage blockchain infrastructure on behalf of commercial clients — makes an average of nearly $10 billion a month in bought stake assets.
Two months ago, the company’s staked assets were valued at approximately $1.3 billion. Blockdeamon has raised nearly $100 million from investors to date and now plans to expand its global presence in Japan, Singapore, Germany, and the UK next year.
Blockdeamon announced this month that it plans to move its NFTs (non-fungible tokens) after acquiring a stake in Anyblock Analytics (a German startup).
Konstantin Richter, the founder and CEO of Blockdeamon, said the company’s [healthy] blockchain infrastructure is “making it easier for [Wall Street banks] and other institutions to tap into the cryptocurrency universe”.
Richter adds that the blockchain company — with headquarters in Ireland and California — is glad to have JPMorgan and Tiger Global as strategic investors, which will help Blockdeamon to continue “to power the blockchain economy around the world”.
