Goldman Sachs planning to offer BTC to its private wealth clients in Q2 2021
2 min readTL;DR Breakdown
- Goldman Sachs to offer crypto mid-2021.
- Banks are changing their stance on crypto.
Goldman Sachs, the American investment banking behemoth, is planning to provide cryptocurrencies to its private wealth clients by mid-2021.
Goldman Sachs to offer crypto soon
Mary Rich, the newly appointed Head of Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs, while speaking with CNBC, said the company was looking into how to grant access to cryptocurrencies to their private wealth clients soon. Rich said her bank is considering rolling out a broad spectrum of crypto investment products. This would either be BTC or cryptocurrency derivatives. She did not however reveal what would be required for the offer that would be launched soon. But given the way Goldman Sachs had handled its wealth management previously, clients are generally expected to invest a minimum of $25 million.
Banks are having a change of mind
When BTC sprung up in 2009, most banks, which included the big guns on Walls Street, didn’t want to have anything to do with it. But given the increasing adoption of Bitcoins by institutional and retail investors, banks are gradually rethinking their stance and offering crypto related services. To them, relative to gold and other traditional assets, BTC provides a betters security against inflations.
There has been increased requests from traditional investors in the finance space to include crypto services and crypto related investments. This is viewed as a better way out of the global economic situation occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. These requests and new developments have made banks to have a rethink on cryptocurrencies in a bid to not be faced with a mass exodus of their customers.
A prominent bank, Morgan Stanley, has yielded to demands from its customers and is now offering crypto services. Mary Rich had unequivocally said her bank is also looking into towing that path. Rich said Goldman Sachs would offer BTC investments that are similar to that of Morgan Stanley going forward.
