FLASH FRIDAY is a weekly content series looking at the past, present and future of capital markets trading and technology. FLASH FRIDAY is sponsored by Instinet, a Nomura company.
In the last week there were two signs of the future of money.
On Wednesday 12 November 2025 an era came to an end when the U.S stopped production of the one cent coin. The penny was first produced in 1793 when it would buy a biscuit, candle or a piece of candy according to the Associated Press (AP).
The AP reported that Treasurer Brandon Beach said “God bless America, and we’re going to save the taxpayers $56m” at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia before hitting a button to strike the final penny.
The U.S Mint reported in its 2024 annual report that the penny’s unit cost had increased 20.2% to 3.69 cents, above face value for the 19th consecutive fiscal year.
The penny managed to last more than two hundred years but many forms of digital money are just at the beginning of their journey. On the same day as the penny came to an end, J.P. Morgan became the first bank to issue a USD deposit token on a public blockchain.
Following a successful proof-of-concept of JPMD, the JPM Coin USD deposit token, is available for the bank’s institutional clients to move money quickly, easily and securely on Base, the Ethereum Layer 2 blockchain built within Coinbase. B2C2, Coinbase, and Mastercard have completed test transactions using JPM Coin.
Naveen Mallela, global co-head of Kinexys by J.P. Morgan, said in a statement: “JPM Coin delivers the security of bank-backed deposits and settlement, combined with the speed and innovation of 24/7, near real-time blockchain transactions, increasing efficiency and unlocking liquidity.”
It makes financial sense to stop making pennies, but a tokenized bank deposit for your thoughts doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
