U.S. financial giant JPMorgan Chase (JPM  ) is partnering with German industrial group Siemens (SIEGY  ) to develop a new blockchain-based system for payments, according to a Financial Times report Monday.

The novel payments system uses the infrastructure of JPMorgan's blockchain unit Onyx, of which Siemens is the first anchor client. The system will be used to automatically transfer money between Siemens' own accounts in US dollars first before expanding support to euros to be supported next year. The payments application will reportedly be geared toward the automation of the various actions required in the recording and verification of payments.

Onyx global head of coin systems Naveen Mallela said JPMorgan has a pipeline of clients for the system, and the Onyx infrastructure will take programmable payments beyond current uses like direct debits and standing orders.

Here is the rest of the week in review:

Xinhua, the official news agency of China, announced Wednesday it will issue a digital media photo collection via non-fungible tokens (NFTs), marking a first for China and a boost for the blockchain technology that underpins the popular tokens. The state news agency's statement seems to indicate official support for NFTs, but it came just after party mouthpiece People's Daily last month criticized them as a possible fraud. Xinhua said it plans to issue the 11 photos, all captured by journalists during 2021, free of charge online on the evening of December 24, each in a limited edition of 10,000 copies. Xinhua noted the new collection will "imprint digital memories into the metaverse." NFTs act as tradable digitized ownership certificates and have surged in popularity this year. But China's relationship with the blockchain technology behind them remains a complex one, since the government has increasingly cracked down on the crypto sector as possible methods for illegal capital flows and money laundering.

Uniswap, the popular decentralized exchange, and Ethereum scaling system Polygon said Wednesday that all Uniswap version 3 contracts are now deployed to the Polygon mainnet. The new launch comes a few days after UNI holders voted to approve a governance proposal ratifying the deployment. Polygon cofounder Mihailo Bjelic said: "Ethereum introduced a noble vision of an open, borderless economic system accessible to everyone. With the increased usage, fees on Ethereum layer 1 have effectively 'priced out' most of the users." The Polygon version of Uniswap aims to change the issue of exorbitantly high gas fees for regular users, with the ambitious mission to make Uniswap the flagship Ethereum application and return back to low fees and open access for everyone. As the largest DEX by trading volume, Uniswap is already deployed on two companion systems, and the Polygon deployment is expected to be a successful scaling effort. The prices of Polygon's native asset MATIC and the UNI token were higher on the news, and MATIC reached a new all-time high.

Crypto prices edged up to $2.368 trillion this week. For the majors, all were green, as Bitcoin (BTC) crossed $50,000 again, and Terra (LUNA) and Polkadot (DOT) made outsized gains. In the top 100, the biggest decliners were WAVES, down 4.7%, OKB, down 2.8%, and XDC Network, down 1.5%. The biggest gainers were NEAR Protocol, up 62%, Fantom (FTM), up 59%, and Aave (AAVE), up 45%. Next week traders will watch if Bitcoin can move higher.

The author owns a small amount of BTC.