JP Morgan has announced it is leaving the R3 blockchain consortium, making it the latest in a string of high profile organisations, including Goldman Sachs, to cut their ties with the initiative.
Since the birth of the consortium, R3 has grown to in excess of 80 members, but this clearly has not enticed or instilled confidence in some of its most influential members. JP Morgan was among the original founding members.
Last year R3 saw an exodus of major banks from the consortium, these included Morgan Stanley, Santander and Goldman Sachs in quick succession within the space of a few weeks.
The withdrawal of these key members resulted in a significant blow to funding goals, as only $59m was raised, falling worryingly short of the $150m target.
The consortium originally intended to raise $200m, but ended up even falling short of the revised target figure.
As R3 is appearing to lose its grip to some extent on progress in its pursuit of blockchain development, another consortium is drawing attention, the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance.
JP Morgan was also a founding member of this consortium, and now has good company with the likes of giants such as Microsoft, Accenture, Santander and Credit Suisse. Santaner is another major organisation that exited R3.
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The Enterprise Ethereum Alliance is focussed firmly on corporate-grade technology, while the R3 blockchain consortium is an open source platform. The withdrawal of key members from R3 blockchain consortium may represent lower confidence in the open source option.
JP Morgan remains a stalwart believer in technology, having kept up strong investments in the industry, including a $600m injection into FinTech specifically in 2016. This funding was merely a part of a vast $9.5 billion tech spend last year.
