In a somewhat surprising interview, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein said that while Bitcoin was “not for me,” he did say that he could envision a future for the cryptocurrency.
A lot of the traditional financial giants expended a lot of effort and time denigrating the rise of cryptocurrency. What a difference a year or so makes. JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon once called Bitcoin a “fraud,” but now many of the investment powerhouses are dipping their toes into the cryptocurrency space.
Bitcoin ‘Not for Me’
CNBC caught up with Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein at a talk at the Economic Club of New York. On the subject of cryptocurrency, he was extremely open-minded, a refreshing change of pace from many of the Wall Street titans.
He talked about how the economic system used to be based on gold but eventually switched to fiat that is backed by centralized governments. In that vein, he says that he can envision cryptocurrency existing. He stated:
If you could go through that fiat currency where they say this is worth what it’s worth because I, the government, says it is, why couldn’t you have a consensus currency?
Blankfein added:
And so it’s not for me, I don’t do it, I own no bitcoin. Goldman Sachs as far as I know… has no bitcoin, but if it does work out, I could give you the historical path why that could have happened.
Goldman Sachs CEO Humble
Lloyd Blankfein explained that he didn’t want to dismiss Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies just because he couldn’t understand it. He said that such a dismissal due to a lack of familiarity would be “too arrogant.”
Blankfein’s views are a breath of fresh air. The honest truth is that Goldman Sachs is already heavily invested in cryptocurrency. The financial juggernaut is backing Circle, which recently doubled the size of their minimum bitcoin trade to $500,000. Circle CEO Jeremy Allaire has said he expects that “every form of value on the planet will become a crypto token.”
Goldman Sachs itself is inching closer to opening a Bitcoin trading desk. Back in April, the company hired Jason Schmidt, a cryptocurrency trader, to be the head of their digital asset markets division.
Overall, Goldman Sachs looks like they’re willing to start carving up a piece of the cryptocurrency pie for themselves. While their CEO may not hodl any Bitcoin, it appears that his company is quite willing to take advantage of this new market.
What do you think about the statements by Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein? Let us know in the comments below.
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