Bitcoin benefited from the news that Wall Street investment bank Goldman Sachs is officially making a move towards a bitcoin trading operation.
Goldman Sachs would soon begin trading bitcoin futures with its own money for its patrons, according to a report on the New York Times. It would also offer so-called non-deliverable forwards, another kind of derivative product that the bank would generate.
Should the bank get the green light from the appropriate regulators, the report indicated that it would soon trade bitcoin.
Bitcoin got a huge boost from this development as it rose by nearly $200 in just two hours. It was trading at $9,099 at 3:29 a.m. Thursday UTC but surged to $9,256 a few hours later. It is currently exchanging at $9,218 as of press time according to CoinMarketCap.
Bloomberg News had reported in December that the bank was getting set to launch a crypto desk by June. Goldman would be the first major bank to initiate such a trading operation.
Goldman is already clearing bitcoin futures for some clients, as does its archrival Morgan Stanley, while other major banks such as Citi and Bank of America have not touched the market with a 10-foot pole.
Notably, Goldman tapped Justin Schmidt to function as vice president and head of digital asset markets in the firm’s securities division. Goldman executive Rana Yared would also play a key role in the creation of the desk.