Crypto Custody Offerings Planned by Goldman Sachs

According to insider information, global banking and finance major Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is planning custody offerings for cryptocurrency funds. The bank had already given some hints of it trading in Bitcoin futures earlier this year in May and is now planning to offer different types of products related to cryptos, in response to their clients’ interest.

Cryptocurrency Custody

While Goldman Sachs has officially stated that they have not yet reached a conclusion regarding the scope of their offerings for digital assets, insider sources were much more revealing, stating that the bank is definitely planning custody in cryptocurrencies.

What this means is that the bank would be able to hold securities for cryptos, thereby reducing the risk clients face in terms of losing their investments to hack attacks.

And according to these sources, if the bank were to put a custody service in place, then it could lead to the offering of further services, which could well include prime-brokerage.

However, at this time, according to the insiders, the deliberations and planning is ongoing and that there has been no timeline set for when these new services would be rolled out.

So far, Goldman Sachs has been rather hesitant about taking the plunge into the cryptocurrency space, preferring to take baby steps. The bank did hire Justin Schmidt early this year to head their digital-assets division, however, beyond that, Goldman Sachs has been slow to do much else.

Interest in Cryptocurrencies in Mainstream Finance

There seems to be contradictory views on cryptocurrencies in mainstream financial institutions.

For example, Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the parent company of more than 20 exchanges globally, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), just announced that it was creating a regulated “ecosystem” for digital assets, which it targeting for launch in November this year. The mega exchange announced that it was teaming up with other industry majors such as Microsoft and Starbucks in this venture.

Nomura Holdings Inc. has also joined hands with other companies to create custody consortium Komainu. And then, there are at least 3 custodian majors on Wall Street – JP Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of New York Mellon Corp. and Northern Trust Corp. – who are also working on creating cryptocurrency related offerings.

JP Morgan Chase is now one of the banks that is leading the way into cryptocurrency offerings, despite the fact that its CEO Jamie Dimon continued with his crypto-bashing over this weekend.

Blackrock is another company that is see-sawing about its approach to cryptos. The asset manager’s CEO, Larry Fink, stated last month that he had not seen enough customer interest in cryptocurrencies to take any steps, but at the same time, sources have revealed that the firm is exploring Bitcoin futures.