J.P. Morgan

Basics

AKA JPMorgan Chase
From Forbes Blockchain 50 (2-2-2021):

"Has signed up 425 banks, including Deutsche Bank and Mexico’s Banorte, to use its Liink blockchain network to speed up interbank transactions. The technology will eventually help banks issue fewer paper checks and move more transactions online."

Quorum

Is launching Quorum, a smart contracts 'permissioned' blockchain to tokenize assets starting with gold bars. Quorum is built off of the Ethereum codebase with some added privacy features like Zero-Knowledge proofs (zk-SNARKS). Is open source
From Forbes Blockchain 50 (Apr 16, 2019):

"The nation’s largest bank is one of the creators of Quorum, a restricted version of the Ethereum blockchain built especially for enterprises looking to move tasks performed by back-office middlemen to the distributed ledger. It recently announced JPM Coin, an early-stage project to enable real-time institution-to-institution payments. Full profile"

Merger with Consensys

Is in merger negotiations (11-2-2020) with Consensys for it's Quorum:

"Referring to it as the JPMorgan “marquee blockchain unit,” a potential Quorum “merger with ConsenSys was chosen as the best path forward as both organizations work with Ethereum and have been involved in joint initiatives in the past.” Indeed, Quorum operates on Ethereum, and the largest US bank reportedly “has been considering spinning off Quorum for around two years, evaluating options including setting up an open-source foundation, creating a new startup or merging it with another company.

Merging Quorum’s more than two-dozen staff members would be in line with its open-source ethos, and at least one person close to the talks apparently confirmed any deal with ConsenSys would maintain the Quorum brand and its open-source operations. While not formalized, a merger could see a public launch later this year, sources hinted, “but financial terms are still unclear.”"

Update (25-8-2020): ConsenSys acquired Quorum.

Token

Tech

Architected and developed around the Go Ethereum client by Jeff Wilcke and his team
In May 2019, they added to Quorum an implementation of the Zether confidential payments protocol.

Oracle Method being used

Governance

Upgrades

Audits

Roadmap

Companies that will use/build on Quorum

Ant Financial
Broadbridge (19-2-2020)
BMW (19-2-2020)
BP
Citi (19-2-2020)
Comcast
General Electric (19-2-2020)
Hewlett Packard Enterprise
HTC
ING
J.P. Morgan (of course)
Microsoft
Project Khoka. In a consortium with seven commercial banks, the South African Reserve Bank conducted a proof-of-concept trial with Quorum, an enterprise-grade implementation of Ethereum, to process the typical daily volume of payments with full confidentiality and finality in less than two hours. Adhara, a ConsenSys venture, is building a multi-currency liquidity management and international payments platform to optimize banks’ capital deployment, manage risk, and leverage liquidity effectively and globally.
SAP
StateFarm
UBS

Competition

Ethereum

Pros and Cons

Team

Architected and developed around the Go Ethereum client by Jeff Wilcke and his team
Samer Falah; Executive Director, Quorum Engineering (Also on the board at EEA)

Investors

Partners

JPM Coin

Will launch it's own token.

Main Links

Part of the EEA
Part of Hyperledger
Partner with Truffle

Money Links

Has funded the Ethereum Foundation.

ConsenSys announced (19-4-2021) a $65m fundraising round from JPMorgan, UBS, Mastercard and Filecoin’s ProtocolLabs.

Current employees

Key leader: Christine Moy, blockchain lead
Key leader: Umar Farooq, CEO of Onyx (2021)

Former employees

Blythe Masters a former JP Morgan executive, now Digital Asset Holdings CEO
Some people from ParaFi Capital have a background (6-7-2020) from this bank.