JPMorgan Continues Web3 Hiring Spree With a Focus on Payments

Wall Street giant JPMorgan is pushing crypto even further, announcing a new Web3-focused senior position.

The new position will require forging a new path, creating new frameworks and working quickly in the presence of ambiguity. The individual should be focused on understanding customer payment needs in the Web3, Crypto, Fintech and Metaverse space. They will also need to help the bank understand the competitive payments landscape and how to position JPMorgan’s payments business to be competitive.

The appointment comes as the Wall Street bank seeks to position itself as an institutional-grade DeFi player by tokenizing traditional financial instruments to be used as collateral in decentralized funding pools. As an example, JPMorgan partnered with Singapore’s DBS Bank and Marketnode earlier this year to test the use of bonds and tokenized deposits in authorized DeFi liquidity pools.

The tokenization process imposes strict Know-Your-Customer rules on DeFi pools.

In May this year, the bank pioneered a blockchain collateral settlement system, receiving tokenized money market fund shares from asset manager BlackRock Inc. on a private blockchain, the Onyx Digital Assets platform. Collateral is settled internally using the bank’s native digital asset, JPM Coin.

The bank is looking to bring traditional assets into the crypto space

According to LinkedIn, JPMorgan’s new crypto role received 46 applicants, most of whom have at least a bachelor’s degree. In addition to five or more years of financial services experience, applicants should have a deep interest in crypto and a desire to develop in the field. With crypto and Web3 being a relatively new sub-sector in the bank’s 200+ year history, no explicit crypto qualification is needed. Applicants with experience in the Software as a Service, Semiconductor or FinTech industries will be favored.

The bank is attacking Web 3 from a variety of angles, all focused on introducing core banking principles and products into the Web3 ecosystem. It wants to bring the speed and convenience of blockchain technology to traditional financial products and services.

JPMorgan has recently spent $12 billion on a virtual bank branch in Decentraland’s Metaverse earlier this year, seeing a future where a Metaverse real estate market could thrive with all associated financial instruments including credit, mortgage, and rental.

By the end of December 2021, the average price of virtual land had doubled from $6,000 in June 2021 to $12,000, according to the bank’s Metaverse report.

Recently, DBS purchased a LAND NFT in the Sandbox to launch an online community that promotes the bank’s sustainability goals.

Job postings for crypto-related jobs skyrocketed in 2022. In May this year, LinkedIn reported that crypto-related job postings increased by 73%.

In response, at least ten institutions of higher learning offer courses related to blockchain and cryptocurrency, some of which focus on technological aspects. However, others are aimed at management professionals.

Institutions providing the courses include Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, University of California, Berkeley, University of Zurich, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, University College London, University Tsinghua, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Stanford University and the University of Oxford.

Notably, Hong Kong Polytechnic is one of the few to offer a postgraduate degree.