JPMorgan Chase has hired former Goldman Sachs cryptocurrency executive Oliver Harris to lead its blockchain unit Kinexys, marking a return to the bank as it expands its digital asset strategy.
Harris previously worked on early-stage blockchain and tokenization at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs before founding Arda, a startup aiming to make real estate assets programmable. His appointment comes as major banks step up investment in blockchain systems aimed at speeding settlements and reshaping how assets move through markets.
However, Harris has been wary of one of the industry’s core ideals in the past. “Tokenization does not equal liquidity,” he said at the Consensus conference in Toronto last year, pushing back against the idea that assets automatically being put on blockchain would make them easier to trade.
Instead, he believes deeper structural changes are needed. In the same discussion, Harris noted the importance of establishing a unified value transfer system. “I’m more interested in a global settlement layer, where you can merge funds, assets and data into one software platform,” he said.
This approach shifts the focus from simply digitizing assets to transforming the infrastructure behind them. Harris described a future in which traditional financial systems will be replaced or simplified by blockchain-based networks. “You can basically dismantle the backends of these existing traditional industries and replace them with… blockchain,” he said, outlining a model in which markets continue to operate and assets interact more directly.
He also warned that tokenization itself risks failing if these changes are not made. It could become, in his words, “tokenization from nowhere,” highlighting the limitations of current implementations that do not address how assets are settled, transferred and integrated into the broader financial system.
Harris’ return to major financial institutions comes as the environment for digital assets has begun to change. Looking back on early efforts, he said in 2025 that both technology and regulation were holding back the industry’s growth. “The technology is now fit for purpose and enterprise-level regulations really don’t exist,” he said.
At Kinexys, Harris is expected to focus on expanding digital settlement infrastructure, improving tokenization capabilities and strengthening connections between public and private blockchains. The goal is to build systems that large institutions can use at scale, rather than isolated blockchain experiments.
“This work lays the foundation for the next era of market structure: how money, assets and information flow on the chain,” he wrote in a post on LinkedIn announcing his new role.
Update (April 29, 2026 20:03 UTC): Add additional context and rewrite the entire text.