Goldman Sachs is speaking with potential partners about spinning out its digital-assets platform into a new company, according to Bloomberg.
"The bank is in talks with a number of market participants on the plans as it continues to build out the platform’s capabilities and develop new commercial use cases." said the report, published Monday. "Plans for the new company are in the early stages, but the long term goal is to execute the spin-out within the next 12 to 18 months, subject to regulatory approvals."
The new company would allow large financial firms to create, trade and settle financial instruments via blockchain. Electronic trading platform Tradeweb Markets will work with Goldman Sachs to bring new commercial use cases to the digital assets platform, according to the report.
“It’s in the best interest of the market to have something that is industry-owned,” Mathew McDermott, Goldman’s global head of Digital Assets, told Bloomberg.
Goldman Sachs plans to facilitate secondary transactions in private digital-asset companies, helping clients like family offices gain liquidity while enabling buyers to benefit from private market discounts. Additionally, the bank aims to resume Bitcoin-backed lending operations, according to McDermott.
“If you are trying to build out a scalable marketplace, you want to have the right strategic participants embracing this technology,” McDermott said. “You want a number that is nimble enough to operate, driven by the commercial use cases.”
Goldman Sachs launched a crypto desk in 2021 and its Digital Asset Platform in 2022. In March, the bank saw a resurging interest in crypto-related products from its hedge fund clients.
Goldman was one of a few banks that tested the blockchain-based communication system Canton Network over the past two years. The test demonstrates "growing momentum" among traditional financial institutions to use cases for blockchain tech "after a decade" of experimentation, Bloomberg reported in March.
In a July CNBC interview, Solomon described Bitcoin as a "speculative investment" with no clear use case but acknowledged its potential as a store of value, akin to a gold reserve.
According to its quarterly 13F filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Goldman Sachs held spot bitcoin ETFs worth around $418.65 million as of June 30. The bank’s largest holdings were 6.9 million shares of BlackRock’s IBIT, worth $238.6 million at the time.
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