Goldman Sachs is joining the lineup of prominent investment banking groups hopping on the cryptocurrency bandwagon.
The lender will soon help well-to-do clients invest in virtual assets, creating a new Digital Assets Group within its private wealth management unit.
The move by Goldman comes less than two weeks after Morgan Stanley announced it would start offering bitcoin exposure to its rich customers.
For the wealthy only
Mary Rich, who was named the new global chief of digital assets for Goldman Sach’s private wealth management arm, said in a CNBC interview that the bank would start offering cryptocurrencies to investors sometime in the next three months.
″We’re working closely with teams across the firm to explore ways to offer thoughtful and appropriate access to the ecosystem for private wealth clients, and that’s something we expect to offer in the near term,” CNBC quoted Rich as saying in an interview.
Though Goldman Sachs has yet to disclose which crypto investments it will support to start with, Rich said the lender ultimately hopes to offer a “full spectrum” of crypto-asset investments, including tokens, as well as derivatives and traditional investment vehicles, Forbes said.
Goldman’s private wealth management unit is focused on the country’s richest people — those who have at least $25 million as an investment.
Rich said Goldman’s decision was propelled by what consumers demanded. The price of bitcoin has soared, breaching the $60,000 level middle of this month.
Bitcoin up 810%
The price of bitcoin is up 3.5% over the past seven days and an impressive 810% higher compared to the previous year. Bitcoins currently in circulation have a value of more than $1 trillion.
Earlier this month, Morgan Stanley told its financial advisors that they could place clients into crypto funds beginning next month, CNBC first reported.
“It’s just how fast adoption happens. Adoption is happening faster than I had predicted — it’s shocking to me how fast people are moving into the system,” Michael Novogratz, former hedge fund billionaire-turned crypto investor, told CNBC.
Image courtesy of CNBC/YouTube