Goldman Sachs CIO Says Bitcoin Is Not an Investment Asset Class

Goldman Sachs chief investment officer Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Bitcoin is not considered an investment asset class, adding “we’re not believers in crypto.”

Wall Street has been coming round to the idea of cryptocurrency as an asset class with many traditional financial institutions such as BlackRock and Fidelity even launching products such as a spot Bitcoin exchange traded fund (ETF) for investors. The recent trading frenzy shows the demand for digital products is there.

Goldman Sachs Remains Old-School

However, Goldman Sachs remains skeptical and old-school about Bitcoin. Mossavar-Rahmani, questions the value of Bitcoin, and told the publication “If you cannot assign a value, then how can you be bullish or bearish?” —  She went on to add that clients have not shown interest in Bitcoin.

Client Demand Is There

Recently Goldman Sachs’ hedge fund clients were reportedly showing increased interest in crypto derivatives, spurred by the resurgence of the crypto market. The bank officially launched its crypto trading desk in 2021. It then began to facilitate various Bitcoin-linked trades, including Bitcoin non-deliverable futures and CME BTC futures, following years of contemplation dating back to 2017.

Currently, Goldman offers cash-settled Bitcoin and Ether option trading, alongside CME-listed Bitcoin and Ether futures. However, it does not directly trade the actual underlying crypto tokens themselves, reports Shalini Nagarajan from Cryptonews.

Max Minton, Goldman’s Asia Pacific head of digital assets, has said in an interview that the recent approval of ETFs has reignited interest and activity among the bank’s clients.

Minton noted that many clients are either currently active in the crypto space or are considering entering it. There has been a noticeable increase in client interest, onboarding, pipeline, and trading volume since the beginning of the year.

Goldman Sachs Likes to Dabble … Discreetly

In 2021, it emerged Goldman Sachs, ICAP, JPMorgan, and UBS had all bought the first exchange-traded product (ETP) in Europe that offered exposure to Polkadot’s DOT cryptocurrency for clients, as reported by CoinDesk.