Sharmeen Mosaffar Rahmani, chief investment officer at Goldman Sachs Wealth Management, told… Wall Street Journal In an interview this week, despite all the recent hype around Bitcoin ETFs, her company isn't buying them.
“We are not believers in cryptocurrencies,” she said. “We don't think it's an investment asset class.”
“If you can't assign a value, how can you be bullish or bearish?” she added. At the heart of her disdain for cryptocurrencies is the difficult task of valuing them, because they do not produce profits, dividends, or cash flows; magazine mentioned.
Having mentored thousands of wealth advisors, clients and traders over the past 23 years in her role at the high-profile investment bank, she told the newspaper that clients are aware of the firm's anti-cryptocurrency stance and refrain from seeking advice to invest in cryptocurrencies. Space, despite Bitcoin reaching an all-time high of $73,737 last month, according to CoinGecko data.
Mosaffar Rahmani said she sees cryptocurrencies as merely a speculative investment and sees no benefit in unregulated markets: “The rule of law and systems of checks and balances are important.”
But Mosavar Rahmani's stance is at odds with others in traditional finance, who are incorporating cryptocurrencies — albeit slowly — into their offerings, contradicting rumors that Goldman may be more crypto-friendly behind the scenes.
“While Goldman Sachs may not have a sophisticated view of Bitcoin or digital assets as long-term portfolio investments, they certainly approach the ecosystem from an infrastructure perspective,” said Matt Ballensweg, managing director and head of Go's Go Network at BitGo. . A reference to the bank's digital assets research unit.
Matthew McDermott, the bank's global head of digital assets, told Reuters in December that he expects a “significant uptick” in the trading volume of blockchain-based assets over the next year or two, and has also seen increased client interest in trading cryptocurrency derivatives.
“Whatever the point of view, large banks will have to serve the needs of their customers, and we are seeing that unfolding now,” Ballensvig added.
Elsewhere on the street
Since the SEC approved 11 spot exchange-traded funds for bitcoin in January, two trading products have been issued by big-name asset managers on Wall Street: BlackRock's iShares Bitcoin Trust (IBIT) and Wise Origin Bitcoin Fund (FBTC) of Fidelity. ).
Given the issuers' access to major investors and established client bases, both funds are leading the hotly contested Bitcoin ETF race, with the funds amassing nearly $60 billion in assets under management to date, according to BitMEX data as of Monday. Of that amount, IBIT and FBTC have raised more than $17 billion and $10 billion, respectively — with the latter being the fastest ETF in history to reach the milestone.
Furthermore, while Mosavar Rahmani may publicly condemn investing in cryptocurrencies, CoinDesk reported in January that Goldman Sachs was in talks to be an authorized participant (AP) in the Grayscale and BlackRock ETFs, a role that involves creating and redeeming ETF shares to underwrite… Products. The trade is closely aligned with its underlying assets.
Other Wall Street players have lined up to fill the role.
BlackRock's AP list includes high-speed quantitative trader Jane Street and JPMorgan, SEC filings show. ETF issuer Valkyrie has also teamed up with Jane Street and Cantor Fitzgerald to fulfill AP roles, another filing shows.
Meanwhile, in the same month, the Nasdaq, CBOE, and NYSE Arca all filed 19b-4s seeking SEC approval to allow related options trading, according to notices on their websites. Furthermore, in February, CoinDesk reported that investment bank Morgan Stanley was looking to add spot Bitcoin ETFs to its brokerage platform. The Wall Street giant is said to be conducting due diligence on the products, according to sources close to the matter. If approved, Morgan Stanley would be the first among large networks of registered investment advisors (RIAs) and brokerage and trading platforms to list ETFs, potentially opening the floodgates for the likes of Merrill Lynch or Wells Fargo to increase inflows.
“These networks and platforms are the addressable market for Bitcoin that ETFs were always meant to open. We know of other large converters or advisory platforms that have approved some ETFs for trading already,” said James Seyfart, a Bloomberg analyst. luck. “I think ultimately the vast majority of platforms, if not all, will agree to these things.”
