On August 6th, 2020, a CNBC exclusive report revealed that Goldman Sachs had promoted its long-serving executive, Mathew McDermott. He will now take on the role of head of digital asset markets.
The bank recruited McDermott amid growing interest from Goldman to venture into crypto at a time when the emerging industry is thriving.
The new chief could help the bank in its ambitions to delve into the digital assets sphere. McDermott is a heavyweight within the mainstream financial community with membership to the Bank of England’s Money Market Committee.
Goldman Sachs has been clearing CME Bitcoin futures contracts for a few years now and is providing customers liquidity for those futures.
The new head of digital assets has now been brought in as Goldman Sachs contemplates creating a new trading desk that would make markets in crypto.
Goldman Follows in JP Morgan’s Steps
JPMorgan made headlines last year when they revealed ambitions to build their stablecoin dubbed JPM Coin. The bank would use the stablecoin to make instant remittances between global parties.
It now appears that Goldman Sachs is interested in a similar token. Their new head of digital assets announced that the bank is exploring the possibility of building a digital token underpinned by fiat currencies.
“We are exploring the commercial viability of creating our own fiat digital token, but it’s in the early days as we continue to work through the potential use cases,” McDermott noted.
Interest in Crypto Sees a Resurgence
The cryptocurrency sector has been performing quite well this year, as all digital assets’ market capital increased by almost 80%.
Goldman Sachs’ new chief of digital assets now argues that this outstanding performance is materializing in a “resurgence in institutional interest” in crypto.
Bloomberg’s Mike McGlone also highlighted the increase in institutional interest. He recently published a report investigating the crypto outlook in recent times.
The Bloomberg analyst noted that with Grayscale still accumulating crypto on a massive scale and BTC futures gaining momentum, it is quite clear that adoption by institutions is showing no signs of slowing down.
Interest in crypto is growing; with a surge in BTC price, last week projected to lure in more investors into the sector. Since that price increase, the search term “Bitcoin” began to trend on Twitter in the US, UK, and Canada. The spike in BTC interest further emerged in Google Trends data.
This renewed interest in digital assets prompted McDermott to tell CNBC that he anticipates a revamped financial system in the next five to 10 years, where all assets and liabilities are native to a blockchain.
