Today, JPMorgan Chase has completed the settlement transaction of tokenized US Treasury bonds through a public blockchain for the first time, transitioning from its private chain “walled garden” to an open blockchain ecosystem.
The bank announced that it had settled the public ledger transaction with the help of crypto companies Chainlink and Ondo Finance.
JPMorgan settles its first transaction on a public blockchain using $LINK and $ONDO to move tokenized treasuries beyond its private network pic.twitter.com/alGdtWGfVJ
— Coin Compass (@CoinCompassHQ) May 14, 2025
This wasn’t just a test. JPMorgan actually moved real money between accounts on its internal blockchain to complete the transaction on Ondo’s decentralized infrastructure. This makes it the bank’s first-ever settlement involving a public blockchain structure. Before, JPMorgan Chase’s digital asset operations were mostly carried out on its private chain Onyx.
The future of a hybrid financial system that combines TradFi and DeFi
There has been a lot of talk about crypto and the digital asset class so far this year. This is because the first crypto-friendly government took office with the return of US President Donald Trump. With it has come beneficial regulations that have been put in place.
The biggest one was debanking, which has now been done away with the proof of JPMorgan’s move.
Nelli Zaltsman, Head of Platform Settlement Solutions at Kinexys, JPMorgan’s blockchain unit, says that this is the first time the bank has put in place infrastructure ready for real use. JPMorgan has tried public blockchain tests before, including one with Siemens Digital in 2024.
JPMorgan relied on Chainlink’s interoperability protocol to execute the transaction. It allows private and public blockchains to communicate securely. This kind of merging could pave the way for a hybrid financial system that combines infrastructure built for institutions with innovations in decentralized finance (DeFi).
“This is not just another POC [proof of concept],” said Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov, emphasizing the significance of the development. “This is the beginning of something big.”
Also, according to Ondo Finance, the transaction was the first cross-chain, atomic Delivery versus Payment settlement of a tokenized asset on the Ondo Chain testnet.
Tokenized assets and cross-chain payments are important parts of how finance is changing, and JPMorgan’s move shows that institutions are becoming more confident in public blockchain technology. This big step forward could speed up Wall Street’s adoption of DeFi tools.
JPMorgan is not the only bank planning to enter the crypto market. CEO of Bank of America Brian Moynihan said this year that the company would release its stablecoin. He said that the bank was just waiting for the law that would make the product offering legal in the US as a whole.
The SEC crypto task force roundtable of tokenizations influences investors
Tokenized real-world assets are quietly going from an idea to a foundation in 2025 as regulated platforms start to change global finance from the inside out.
As reported by Cryptopolitan, the SEC’s Crypto Task Force held a roundtable on tokenization this week. This is the fourth meeting in a series that looks at how to regulate crypto assets. Using asset tokenization as a way for TradFi, like banks and DeFi, to work together was a big part of this discussion. This has yielded results.
Besides JPMorgan, investment company VanEck and the tokenization platform Securitize are launching a tokenized real-world asset (RWA) fund that gives investors access to US Treasury bills. With this move, VanEck joins many traditional financial companies that are getting into RWA tokenization.
VanEck said in a May 13 statement that the fund, which is called VBILL, will be launched on the Avalanche, BNB Chain, Ethereum, and Solana blockchains. For investments working on Avalanche, BNB Chain, and Solana, the minimum subscription to the fund is $100,000. On Ethereum, the minimum subscription is $1 million.
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