JPMorgan Chase (NYSE:JPM) announced on Monday (February 28, 2022) that it would be making an investment in TRM Labs, a blockchain analysis company, becoming the latest in a growing number of Wall Street giants who are expanding their footprint in the crypto and DLT industry.
The analytics software used by TRM and other service providers has become a useful tool for regulatory authorities and law enforcement agencies looking to closely monitor the flow of illicit virtual currency transfers. Recently, banking institution BNY Mellon revealed that it would start integrating these types of analytics tools provided by Chainalysis.
The latest JPMorgan investment “clearly highlights the significance of the growing crypto economy and the importance of building trust and safety in this ecosystem to sustain its growth,” according to Esteban Castano, Co-founder and CEO at TRM.
Although companies such as Chainalysis, TRM Labs and Elliptic work with many established finance sector businesses, most of their clients aren’t publicly disclosed.
The Drugs and Crime Office of the United Nations (UNDOC) along with the Internal Revenue Service, UK Fintech, Revolut, and the online trading brokerage, Robinhood, all reportedly use blockchain analysis to carefully track cryptocurrency transfers.
At the end of 2021, TRM finalized a $60 million round that was led by Tiger Global. It notably included the venture unit of American Express (AXP), Visa (V), and crypto VC company, Castle Island Ventures.
TRM remains focused on tracing cryptocurrency transactions across various blockchains or distributed ledger tech (DLT) platforms, particularly the Solana network. Its customer base includes digital asset custody bank Anchorage Digital, Circle, FTX.US, Moonpay and Binance.
Notably, JPMorgan has also entered into the Metaverse by creating a virtual lounge on the crypto-enabled virtual reality platform, Decentraland.
Umar Farooq, CEO at Onyx, which is JP Morgan’s DLT platform for wholesale payments, shared that “leading infrastructure companies like TRM will help usher in the future of secure blockchain and crypto use cases.”