JPMorgan Chase says it has no current plan to issue a public stablecoin but is weighing one as demand and regulation shift. The move comes as 39 state banking associations build shared blockchain infrastructure and a Zelle-linked stablecoin already operates live, all riding on the GENIUS Act's new federal rules.
JPMorgan Chase — whose chief executive once called Bitcoin a fraud — is now studying whether to issue its own dollar-backed stablecoin. A spokesperson confirmed to the Wall Street Journal on Aug. 26 that the bank has no current plan but will weigh its options as customer demand and the regulatory environment evolve. The disclosure lands alongside a wider banking-sector push: more than a dozen global banks are reportedly building a multicurrency stablecoin venture, and JPMorgan's own Kinexys platform already processes more than $7 billion in daily tokenized deposit volume.
Kinexys already has the rails
Kinexys, formerly Onyx, has processed more than $4 trillion in cumulative transactions, with daily volume climbing to over $7 billion by June 2026 from $5 billion earlier in the year. The bank has extended JPM Coin, which trades as JPMD on Base, and completed a tokenized Treasury redemption test on the XRP Ledger with Mastercard, Ondo Finance and Ripple. A public stablecoin would differ from JPM Coin in one key way: it would be a bearer token anyone could hold, rather than a deposit confined to a closed institutional network.
Community banks build their own alliance
While JPMorgan deliberates, 39 state banking associations representing 3,283 banks with $21.8 trillion in combined assets have formed the BankChain Alliance to build a shared, bank-governed blockchain for tokenized deposits and programmable payments. The Texas Banking Association launched the initiative, and Kathy Kraninger of the Florida Bankers Association chairs it on an interim basis. The alliance targets a 2027 launch but has not picked a technology partner.
GENIUS Act unlocked the market
The GENIUS Act, signed into law on July 18, 2025, gave banks a federal license path to issue payment stablecoins for the first time. Regulators missed the law's one-year implementation deadline, and the OCC now targets November 2026 for final rules, with enforcement generally starting Jan. 18, 2027. Early Warning Services, the Zelle operator jointly owned by seven of the largest U.S. banks, launched the dollar-backed ZLUSD in June 2026 and is targeting India as its first international remittance corridor.
Tether and Circle face a distribution fight
The stablecoin market has reached approximately $316 billion, with Tether holding 59% by market capitalization and Circle's USDC carrying roughly 70% of adjusted transaction volume. Dimon warned in 2026 that unregulated stablecoins could be a "huge problem", a comment that doubles as an argument for why banks, not crypto firms, should issue them. If JPMorgan and its peers move from evaluating to launching, they would arrive with balance sheets 100 times larger than Tether's or Circle's — not necessarily better technology, but far deeper pockets and existing customer relationships.
Source: crypto.news
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