JPMorgan, Apollo Tokenize Funds in 'Proof of Concept' With Axelar, Oasis, Provenance

Traditional-finance giants JPMorgan and Apollo successfully worked with a handful of blockchain firms to demonstrate "proof of concept" for how asset managers could tokenize funds on the blockchain of their choice, according to a press release.

JPMorgan’s Onyx Digital Assets collaborated with interoperability layer Axelar, infrastructure provider Oasis Pro and Provenance Blockchain to manage large-scale client portfolios, execute trades and enable automated portfolio management of tokenized assets, according to the release.

After this article was published, press statements revealed several other participants in the demo: Interoperability protocol LayerZero; Ava Labs, creator of the Avalanche blockchain; Web3 developer Biconomy; and asset manager WisdomTree.

Oasis Pro enabled the tokenization of assets, such as Apollo funds, on the Provenance Blockchain Zone, according to the release.

The initiative is part of Project Guardian, a collaborative effort led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) alongside traditional finance institutions to discover opportunities and potential risks using decentralized finance. The announcement was made at Singapore’s Fintech Festival.

The demonstration also allowed wealth managers to purchase and rebalance their positions in tokenized assets across multiple chains.

“Our goal is to create solutions that bring significant efficiencies and enable better outcomes for asset and wealth managers and investors through personalized, highly scalable portfolios, regardless of asset class or where those assets are managed and recorded,” Tyrone Lobban, head of Onyx Digital Assets, said in the release.

The move comes as a number of traditional finance institutions are showing growing interest in the blockchain industry. Earlier in the year, financial heavyweights including Charles Schwab, Citadel Securities and Fidelity Investments announced the start of cryptocurrency exchange EDX Markets.

Onyx used the Axelar network to enable interoperability with the private blockchain, Provenance Blockchain Zone, used for the project. Oasis Pro, a fintech infrastructure provider for real-world-assets, implemented the tokenization of the assets on the Provenance Blockchain Zone.

“This is believed to be a first-of-its-kind blockchain interoperability solution for institutional financial services,” said Anthony Moro, CEO of Provenance Blockchain.

Provenance Blockchain has supported over $16 billion in transactions and currently has $9 billion in real-world financial assets on-chain, according to a press release.

JPMorgan carried out its first live blockchain-based collateral settlement transaction involving BlackRock and Barclays in October.

UPDATE (Nov. 15, 16:49 UTC): Adds LayerZero, Ava Labs, Biconomy and WisdomTree to the list of firms involved in the proof of concept demonstration in the third paragraph.