Goldman Sachs Can No Longer Dismiss Bitcoin

The Breakdown

Blockworks

Investing, Business

4.8 • 786 Ratings

🗓️ 20 January 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today on the Brief: Gary Gensler is officially Biden’s pick for SEC chairman Investors are betting against the U.S. dollar Grayscale has best day ever with $700 million in investment Ethereum reaches new all-time high Our main discussion: Goldman Sachs reportedly coming to crypto. Over the last year, many traditional financial institutions have recanted previous skepticism to join the bitcoin space. For most of that time, Goldman Sachs has been a noticeable holdout, saying as recently as last May that bitcoin and cryptocurrency weren’t an asset class. According to new reports from a Goldman insider, all that is finally changing as the bank prepares a crypto custody strategy. The change in attitude is inspired at least in part by the recent rulings from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. -- Earn up to 12% APY on Bitcoin, Ethereum, USD, EUR, GBP, Stablecoins & more. Get started at nexo.io -- Enjoying this content? SUBSCRIBE to the Podcast Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1438693620?at=1000lSDb Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/538vuul1PuorUDwgkC8JWF?si=ddSvD-HST2e_E7wgxcjtfQ Google: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ubHdjcnlwdG8ubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M= Follow on Twitter: NLW: https://twitter.com/nlw Breakdown: https://twitter.com/BreakdownNLW The Breakdown is produced and distributed by CoinDesk.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just after Paul Tudor Jones made his great monetary inflation thesis, Goldman released a slide deck
0:05.9	in advance of an investor call that put it bluntly. Cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin,
0:10.8	are not an asset class. The only reason this wealth management division would take the time
0:16.9	to discuss it is if a more than anomalous number of their clients had started asking about it.
0:22.6	Goldman Sachs lost them a ton of money. Bitcoin at that time was at 9,000, about 25% of where it is today.
0:32.4	Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW. It's a daily podcast on macro, Bitcoin, and the big picture power shifts remaking our world.
0:43.3	The Breakdown is sponsored by nexo.io and produced and distributed by CoinDesk.
0:50.0	What's going on, guys? It is Tuesday, January 19th, and today we are talking about the latest institution to come crawling back to crypto.
1:01.6	And it's a good one, Goldman Sachs. First up, however, let's do the brief.
1:06.6	First on the brief today, a quick set of follow-up. So first we're talking about Gary Gensler.
1:12.3	On Monday, President-elect Biden confirmed his selection of Gary Gensler as the next SEC chairman.
1:18.3	I did a whole show about this last week, but the quick hits are this.
1:22.1	Gensler was in the Treasury during the Clinton administration. He had a stint at Goldman Sachs.
1:26.3	He was the head of the CFTC during
1:28.3	Obama dealing with the cleanup post-great financial crisis. Interestingly, there had been a concern
1:33.7	at the time that he wouldn't be tough enough on former banking colleagues, but at least when it
1:38.5	comes to Wall Street now, they seem nervous. The Wall Street Journal titled their article about
1:43.4	Gensler, An old foe of banks could be Wall Street Journal titled their article about Gensler,
1:50.1	An old foe of banks could be Wall Street's new top cop. That same article argued that he could be the most aggressive regulator in two decades and said things like he steamrolled opposition
1:55.6	to write rules from scratch governing derivatives during the Obama administration.
2:02.1	Now, when it comes to what he's likely to be tough on, a lot of people expect it has to do with ESG environmental type things.
2:08.4	They effectively anticipate more focus on the way that companies operate with regard to those
	...

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