Goldman Sachs Plans to Spin Out Blockchain-Based Digital Assets Platform : Report

Goldman Sachs is looking to venture deeper into crypto-related services. In an interaction with Bloomberg News, Global Head of Digital Assets Mathew McDermott said that the new crypto platform currently under work would focus on facilitating traditional trading and crypto transactions on blockchain networks. The development comes days after pro-crypto billionaire Donald Trump was elected as the 47th President of the US – a decision that dramatically raised Bitcoin's value to over $93,000 (roughly Rs. 78.5 lakh).

At present the New York-headquartered bank is in talks with various other fintech and Web3 firms, to equip the crypto platform with various features, the report by Bloomberg said.

This crypto platform, that could take between 12 to 18 months to launch, will be created as an individual company that would focus on catering to institutional investors and large-scale financial firms.

The interest of institutional investors in crypto has risen exponentially. In a recent conversation with Gadgets360, Catherine Chen, the Head of VIP and institutional investors at Binance said that the launch of crypto ETFs in the US and other parts of the world have made these virtual digital assets more accessible for big investors to experiment with, through traditional market places, without going through the efforts of signing up on crypto exchanges.

A report by Goldman revealed that crypto investments by family businesses have spiked from 16 percent in 2021 to 32 percent in 2023.

According to McDermott, the idea behind Goldman working on this Web3 project is to offer large-scale investors and family businesses a crypto platform that is ‘industry owned' — essentially linked to an established traditional banking player.

Moving forward, the investment bank is also looking to resume lending services backed by Bitcoin, according to the report.

Goldman Sachs has been dabbling in crypto-related services for a while now. In May 2022, the bank offered its first ever Bitcoin-backed loan to Coinbase.