Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is expanding beyond bitcoin and via its trading desk will offer options and futures for Ethereum, the second-largest crypto by market capitalization.Â
Goldman Sachs is moving beyond the world of #Bitcoin and expanding into #Ether https://t.co/HFF3SmpRYZ
More on @crypto: https://t.co/LYphXLEzpH $ETH $GS pic.twitter.com/gCrv4nZuTy
— Bloomberg Crypto (@crypto) June 15, 2021
According to reports, the new move into crypto for the Wall Street banking giant would be to help its clients trade ETH, through the financial instruments it offers.
This was announced by Mathew McDermott, head of digital assets at Goldman, who despite the drop in the price of the queen of crypto Bitcoin recorded last May 2021, confirms that interest in the sector from clients is still growing.Â
“We’ve actually seen a lot of interest from clients who are eager to trade as they find these levels as a slightly more palatable entry point. We see it as a cleansing exercise to reduce some of the leverage and the excess in the system, especially from a retail perspective”.
Not only that, McDermott also emphasised that crypto assets are not a passing fad, but that he sees them as a long-term sector. In this regard, he then commented as follows:
“Institutional adoption will continue. Despite the material price correction, we continue to see a significant amount of interest in this space”.
And indeed, according to a survey undertaken by Goldman Sachs last week, out of 850 institutions, as many as nearly one in 10 are trading cryptocurrencies and 20% are interested in them.
Goldman Sachs chooses Ethereum and is increasingly present in the crypto world
Ever since Goldman Sachs restarted its trading desk last March 2021, it seems that opportunities to gather data on the interests of its proactive clients in the crypto world continue to yield positive results. The financial instruments on Ethereum in the pipeline are a confirmation of this.Â
On this basis, the banking giant had also drawn up a report last month that defined crypto as a new asset class, also gathering opinions from companies linked to the cryptocurrency sector.Â
Not only that, in the same period, Goldman made several investments in the sector. Specifically, Goldman Sachs has:
- invested in crypto start-ups
- invested $5 million in a fundraising effort by Blockdaemon, a company that creates and hosts the computer nodes that make up blockchain networks
- led the $15 million investment in Coin Metrics, a provider of cryptocurrency and blockchain data for institutional clients, and McDermott joined the company’s board.
Mathew McDermott has also confirmed that the crypto world has indeed become a strategic direction for Goldman Sachs.Â