According to Cointelegraph, JPMorgan's Onyx Coin Systems has successfully completed a blockchain-based cross-border payments pilot project with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB). The pilot phase was executed seamlessly with satisfactory response times, according to a statement. This comes weeks after a similar test in Bahrain, where Bank ABC had been testing the Onyx system and proceeded to a limited launch of services. FAB said it was continuing to explore the opportunities the system offers.

Launched in 2020, JPMorgan's permissioned distributed ledger has been gaining momentum in recent months. Tyrone Lobban, JP Morgan Onyx Digital Assets & Blockchain head, said earlier this month that the platform currently processes between $1 billion and $2 billion a day. In addition to its expansion in the Middle East, Onyx has been used for euro-denominated payments in Europe since June and launched interbank USD settlements in India with a consortium of six banks that same month.

On October 11, the first public trade was settled on JPMorgan's new Tokenization Collateral Network, which also runs on the Onyx blockchain. Money market fund shares were tokenized and deposited at Barclays Bank as security for a derivatives exchange between JPMorgan and BlackRock. Mastercard announced it was testing its Multi Token Network in June, and Citigroup introduced its Citi Token Services in September. JPMorgan was one of the participants in Project Guardian, with DBS Bank and Marketnode. The project, which concluded in June, was developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore and Bank for International Settlements. It involved the creation of a liquidity pool of tokenized bonds and deposits for use in lending and borrowing. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon recently expressed his strong belief in artificial intelligence but also called cryptocurrencies 'decentralized Ponzi schemes.'