Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon Debunks Claims Of The Bank Starting a Crypto Trading Desk

If you have been following the crypto space closely for the past year, you ould have noticed several rumors of Goldman Sachs launching their own crypto trading desk. Goldman Sachs was far from the only major financial company that has announced support for bitcoin. Over the last few years, a growing number of traditional hedge funds, banking companies, and institutional investors have gained exposure to crypto in different ways.

However, now Goldman Sachs seems to be backpedaling from that narrative. During the United States House of Representatives Financial Services Committee on April 10, the CEO of Goldman Sach has come out to deny claims that the bank is planning to start a crypto trading desk.

Solomon said in the hearing:

“The first [Bloomberg article] wasn’t correct. Like others, we are watching and […] doing work to try to understand the cryptocurrency market as it develops […] but we never had plans to open a cryptocurrency trading desk.”

Here he was referring to the Bloomberg article that had started these rumors. The bank’s CFO, Martín Chavez, explained that the rumors about the institution delaying its plans to launch a crypto trading desk are ‘fake news.’ Chavez explained that these plans were going to take a long time. A trading desk needs to be approved by regulators and several steps must be taken in order to launch it to the market.

Chavez thinks that traditional banks are not ready to work in harmony with cryptos. He had said:

“When we talked about exploring digital assets, it was going to be an exploration that would be evolving over time. Maybe someone who was thinking about our activities here got very excited that we would be making markets as principals in physical bitcoin, and as they got into it, they realized that is part of the evolution, but it’s not here yet. From the perspective of custody, we don’t yet see an institutional-grade custodial solution for bitcoin. We’re interested in having that exist, but it’s a long road.”

The CEO also shares similar views, however, he made it clear that they are not ruling out any crypto projects int the future. He stated:

“We might at some point in time, but there’s no question, when you’re dealing with cryptocurrency, it’s a new area […] it is unclear from a regulatory perspective, it’s unclear whether […] in the long run, as a currency, those technologies are going to work and be viable.”

Republican Congressman from Ohio, Warren Davidson from Ohio asked Davidson why the US was staying behind when compared to many countries to take advantage of the thriving crypto sector.