Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs will use its own funds for trading futures on bitcoin on behalf of their clients.
On Wednesday The Times reported that although the exact starting date of the implementation of the new trading operation are not yet established, but the Board of Directors of the Bank has already signed an agreement on this initiative.
In addition, according to the report, Goldman Sachs plans to create their own, more flexible version of the futures, known as non-deliverable forward contract (NDF).
Executive Director Goldman Sachs Rana Yared (Rana Yared) said that this decision was made as a result of the growing number of requests from customers who have expressed interest in bitcoin as an alternative asset.
“Our customers want to buy bitcoins or bitcoin futures, because they consider them an alternative means of savings, and we agree with them”, she said in an interview with The Times.
To conduct daily operations in the investment Bank hired its first trader “digital assets”, Justin Schmidt (Justin Schmidt). Prior to that, he worked as a trader in a hedge Fund Seven Eight Capital, and last year decided to switch to cryptocurrency trading.
Recall that Goldman Sachs is developing a platform for trading cryptocurrencies, became known in the end of last year. It was reported that the launch will take place in June 2018.
Shortly before that, CEO of the investment Bank, Lloyd Blankfein (Lloyd Blankfein) said that Goldman Sachs will be engaged in the clearing of futures contracts on the bitcoin to their clients.
According to Yared, the employees of Goldman Sachs have shown a cautious approach throughout the process of preparing for innovation:
“This is not a new risk, which we don’t understand. It’s just increased risk, which we must know as much as possible”.
