ConsenSys, Ethereum’s leading blockchain software company, has acquired JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s platform Quorum.
ConsenSys has acquired Quorum! Through this acquisition and investment from JP Morgan, we will continue to drive adoption and innovation through an open source protocol layer on which production-ready business applications can be built. #WelcomeQuorum https://t.co/YGBrAiprpt pic.twitter.com/cNWe28roDA
— ConsenSys (@Consensys) August 25, 2020
Quorum was built by J.P.Morgan to fork Ethereum for privatized financial use-cases. With this acquisition, ConsenSys has rebranded Quorum to ConsenSys Quorum.
ConsenSys Quorum is an open source protocol layer that serves as a foundation for businesses to build public or private Ethereum-based enterprise solutions. ConsenSys Quorum is made up of four layers of open source codebase:- client software, private transaction management, external transaction signing, and additional tooling.
The acquisition helps ConsenSys offer a full range of products, services, and support for Quorum. ConsenSys announced that they will merge their existing protocol engineering roadmap with Quorum, helping them to leverage the best of both codebases. They further added that going forward all the Enterprise Ethereum protocol technology at ConsenSys will fall under the ConsenSys Quorum brand. They announced that the developers will have the option to choose the underlying technology stack. Quorum will remain an open source software and become interoperable with ConsenSys’s other leading blockchain products.
Quorum was being used by J.P.Morgan to run the Interbank Information Network, a payments network serving more than 400 institutional clients, who going forward by virtue of this acquisition, have automatically become the customers of ConsenSys by default, thereby also availing all the additional, more robust and advanced features and services deployed on ConsenSys Quorum.
J.P. Morgan, in turn, has made a strategic investment in ConsenSys. The specifics of this deal were not disclosed publicly.
Joe Lubin, the founder of ConsenSys, said that with this investment, J.P.Morgan will get a seat on the Board of Directors at ConsenSys. He also stated that under a commercial agreement, ConsenSys will support the Inter-Bank Information Network and JPM Coin Network. He made a series of tweets in which he expressed his positive sentiment regarding these recent major developments.
When institutional finance & #blockchain technology converge! @Consensys acquires @jpmorgan’s enterprise #Ethereum platform, Quorum and receives a strategic investment. Founder @ethereumJoseph joins to discuss what it all means. $ETH pic.twitter.com/KEaIBylikS
— Julia Chatterley (@jchatterleyCNN) August 25, 2020
The first rumor of this deal started surfacing back in February, more than six months ago.
To stay up with ConsenSys Quorum, follow them on Twitter.
Tarang discovered ETH in 2018 and has been actively involved in DeFi after finding PoolTogether in 2019. He’s most interested in the DEX sector as a frequent user and participant in Uniswap and Kyber Network alongside lending protocols like Aave. Tarang’s active presence in DeFi has given him a front-row seat to cutting edge trends and real-time developments. Stay up with Tarang by following him on Twitter.
