As one of the largest investment banks in the world, Goldman Sachs’ stance toward cryptocurrencies is an indicator of Wall Street’s attitude. Goldman recently confirmed the appointment of David Solomon as CEO. Will he be more receptive to crypto?
David Solomon, the current president and chief operating officer of Goldman Sachs, will take over from Lloyd Blankfein in the role of CEO in October 2018.
Blankfein has presided as CEO since 2006, before bitcoin existed. Over a decade later, in October 2017, the Wall Street Journal reported[1] that Goldman Sachs was considering setting up a bitcoin trading operation. But the day after the WSJ report, Blankfein tweeted:
A month later, he was quite a bit more negative about the currency, saying, "Something that moves 20% [overnight] does not feel like a currency. It is a vehicle to perpetrate fraud."
That negativity appears to have settled back into equanimity. Last month, during a talk at the Economic Club of New York, he stated[2] that although he does not own bitcoin, "if it does work out, I could give you the historical path why that could have happened."
And although he declared then that "Goldman Sachs as far as I know … has no bitcoin," early in 2018, a Goldman-backed payments startup, Circle, acquired cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex[3]. The involvement was interpreted as a potential step toward cryptocurrency acceptance by the investment giant.
The appointment of David Solomon, who currently serves as president and chief operating officer, may signal that Goldman Sachs intends to more seriously pursue cryptocurrency trading, given his relatively positive – though circumspect – public statements on cryptocurrencies.
"We are clearing some futures around bitcoin, talking about doing some other activities there, but it's going
