Goldman Sachs has fought back at claims that it is dropping the development of its Bitcoin trading platform, suggesting that such a product will still be in the company’s future. Just no one knows when.
It was originally reported that Goldman Sachs would have its Bitcoin trading platform in June. However, June has come and gone, and there is still, nothing. It appeared that legal pressures from the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) were the main reasons for the investment bank failing to provide the product.
At Tech Crunch Disrupt today, Goldman Sachs CFO Marty Chavez, dismissed these claims as “fake news.” The CFO states the investment bank is still exploring the market to deliver Bitcoin related products, but it has not yet provided an end date for delivery. Suggesting the project is on hold, rather than in active development.
Chavez stated at Disrupt, “I was in New York yesterday and I was co-chairing our risk committee, and I saw the news article. It wasn’t like we announced anything or that anything had changed for us… I never thought I’d hear myself actually use this term, but I’d really have to describe that as fake news.”
The CFO continued by reaffirming Goldman Sachs’ exploration into the Bitcoin market, suggesting that interest into the area from the bank’s clients has been high, and they are keen to have tradeable Bitcoin products in the near future.
“Our institutional clients said, ‘We would love for you to clear these new Bitcoin-linked futures contracts offered by the exchanges,’ so we’ve been doing that, and then clients since May [started to ask], ‘We would like for you also to provide us liquidity and trade the principal as principal the futures contracts, not just clear them,’ and so we’ve been doing that, the next stage of the exploration, what we call ‘non-deliverable forwards,’” Chavez continued.
It would seem that reports from earlier in the year are still true. Goldman Sachs will be proceeding to provide “crypto futures and forwards” for its clients.
When will the platform go live? Only time (and regulations) will tell.
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