12/22/2017 Doing a 180 – Goldman Sachs Goes Crypto - Bitcoin News

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4 mins ago | C. Edward Kelso (https://news.bitcoin.com/author/edwkelso/) | |

Doing a 180 – Goldman Sachs Goes Crypto

(https://news.bitcoin.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Shape-Goldman-Sachs-Logo.png)

The Year of Bitcoin continues to get more interesting, as reports surfaced today that
legacy bank Goldman Sachs will open a cryptocurrency trading desk by mid 2018. It’s a
momentous occasion for many reasons, but not least of which is the in uence the
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12/22/2017 Doing a 180 – Goldman Sachs Goes Crypto - Bitcoin News

bank carries in terms of respect within the industry.

Also read: Championing Decentralized Exchanges, Now Might Be the Perfect Time for
Bisq (https://news.bitcoin.com/championing-decentralized-exchanges-now-might-be-
the-perfect-time-for-bisq/)

Goldman Sachs Sees Summer of Bitcoin 2018

Bloomberg reports that banking institution Goldman Sachs
(http://www.goldmansachs.com/) is set to launch a cryptocurrency trading desk by July
of next year.

Goldman is mainstream within the mainstream, topped o with some extra mainstream
in case anyone was wondering about its mainstream cred. It just doesn’t get any more
American banking than the one 150 year old institution. It’s an integral part of any US
weighted nancial average, including the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the
S&P 100 and 500 components. It boasts over 35 billion USD in revenue and has enough
employees to nearly sell out a professional baseball stadium.

Take a job at Goldman and there’s a chance you just might end up running Europe’s
central bank (Mario Draghi), landing the printing press at the US Treasury (Steven
Mnuchin), heading the Bank of England (Mark Carney), or become the prime minister of

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12/22/2017 Doing a 180 – Goldman Sachs Goes Crypto - Bitcoin News

Australia (Malcolm Turnbull). And should Goldman ever have nancial trouble, not to
worry: taxpayers will oat a cool ten billion dollars in relief just as usual because, well, it’s
Goldman!

According to the report, Goldman is “still trying to work out security issues as well as
how it would hold, or custody, the assets.”

Goldman Had Been Hinting

Bitcoin has been an increasing topic of conversation at the rm. This month alone, the
company hosted a Talks at GS (http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/talks-at-
gs/evolution-of-bitcoin.html)program, and the panel resolution read: “The Evolution of
Bitcoin.” The talk included Coin Center’s Jerry Brito and the CEO of 21 Inc, Balaji
Srinivasan. They discussed “public policy issues for digital currency, [and] the evolution
of Bitcoin and its long-term potential.” And more recently its podcast, Exchanges at
Goldman Sachs (http://www.goldmansachs.com/our-thinking/podcasts/episodes/12-
15-2017-richard-ramsden.html), episode 80, carried the title: “Tax Reform, Bitcoin, and
the Year Ahead for Financials.”

Goldman “is now assembling a team in New York,” Bloomberg

(https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-21/goldman-is-said-to-be-
building-a-cryptocurrency-trading-desk) continued. “While the bank hasn’t made a
decision where to house the desk, one possibility is that it will operate within the xed-

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12/22/2017 Doing a 180 – Goldman Sachs Goes Crypto - Bitcoin News

income, currencies and commodities unit’s systematic trading function, which conducts
transactions electronically,” the report paraphrases two unnamed sources as having
said.

Its CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, has played possum with bitcoin for months now. He rst
tweeted a mild defense of the world’s most popular cryptocurrency back in October, but
of late has been heaping skepticism on bitcoin’s long-term viability. His leadership team
also put heavy restrictions on clearing bitcoin futures as CME and Cboe made contract
markets.

Whatever the case, 2018, with Nasdaq entering the bitcoin futures market along with
Cantor Fitzgerald, and now Goldman open to the decentralized currency, might just
make this next year as interesting as 2017 for enthusiasts.

What are your thoughts on Goldman’s plans? Tell us in the comments below.

Images via Pixabay, Goldman Sachs.

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(https://news.bitcoin.com/author/edwkelso/)
C. Edward Kelso (https://news.bitcoin.com/author/edwkelso/)
C. Edward Kelso is a long-time fintech journalist, passionately covering the cryptocurrency space since 2014.

 (https://www.facebook.com/SpontaneousCrypto/)  (https://twitter.com/CryptoKelso)

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