JP Morgan, the infamous American bank within the cryptocurrency ecosystem is reportedly testing a privacy offering technology known as zero-knowledge proofs ( zk -SNARKs). Could a privacy coin by JPMorgan be on the way?

Zcash, the well-known privacy coin within the crypto space is said to be at the forefront of zk -SNARKs, a project that allows anonymous transactions and its also a technology that Edward Snowden has stamped his approval on.

JP Morgan has been examining the AZTEC protocol, a zero-knowledge proof solution developed by London based start up , a technology that is already live on the Ethereum Mainnet.

According to its white paper;

The AZTEC protocol enables confidential transactions in a generic form that can be implemented on blockchains that support general-purpose computation, such as the Ethereum blockchain. The AZTEC protocol can be attached to existing digital assets defined on these platforms (for example, digital assets that conform to the ERC20 token standard). The protocol also enables confidential cross-asset trades for digital assets defined on the same blockchain platform via confidential zero-knowledge decentralized exchanges.

It should be noted that JPMorgan recently rolled out its own cryptocurrency, the JPM coin after its CEO blasted Bitcoin calling it a scam and a fraud.

The bank also said it might be opening up JMP coin to the public, something which differs from their initial statement and purpose for JMP coin which was originally designed for their internal use.

If a privacy coin by JPMorgan is being developed, then it could mean the bank is planning on going full scale on cryptocurrencies.

Compared to other zk-SNARKS, AZTEC protocol is different in that it is less taxing computationally due to range proofs which it uses. The team is also said to be working on making transactions cheaper and more effective.

What are your thoughts on this? Can we expected a privacy coin from JPMorgan anytime soon?