Goldman Sachs furthering investment into bitcoin, and even crypto more broadly, shouldn’t surprise anyone too much by now. The top-tier global investment and financial services firm has emphasized this quarter as the one to get their crypto services in swing, and this recent partnership announcement falls in line with exactly that.

The Partnership Perspective: Galaxy Digital

According to , Goldman Sachs is teaming up with Mike Novogratz’s crypto merchant bank, Galaxy Digital. The partnership will enable Galaxy Digital to be Goldman’s liquidity provider for bitcoin futures buy and sell orders on the CME Group derivatives exchange. In a statement regarding the partnership, head of digital assets for Goldman Sach’s Asia-Pacific region Max Minton said “our goal is to equip our clients with best-execution pricing and secure access to the assets they want to trade. In 2021, this now includes crypto, and we are pleased to have found a partner with a broad range of liquidity venues and differentiated derivatives capabilities spanning the cryptocurrency ecosystem.” The team at Galaxy Digital is of course optimistic looking forward; Galaxy co-president Damien Vanderwilt went on the record in an interview last week stating that “once one bank is out there doing this, the other banks will have [fear of missing out] and they’ll get on-boarded because their clients have been asking for it”. Vanderwilt’s suggestion that other banks will follow suit is certainly not out of the question, either. “There’s a whole dynamic with the major banks that I’ve seen time and time again: safety in numbers”, said Vanderwilt.

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More “Bank” For Your Buck

Banks are understandably timid when it comes to diving in, but crypto derivatives have been a speculative tool that many see as a gateway for more financial services firms to get involved. This is because of strict regulations that make bitcoin difficult to maneuver around traditionally, but more streamlined in the derivatives landscape. The partnership news comes less than a week following reports that Goldman Sachs is planning to offer clients the ability to trade options and futures in ethereum. Additionally, the news comes just a few short months after the company resurrected plans from roughly four years ago around a cryptocurrency trading desk. That trading desk, sure enough, came to life last month. Speculation is abound that the recent partnership for Goldman could apply pressure on the rest of the institutional marketplace to follow in their tracks.

Crypto's continued emergence throughout 2021 have reeled in traditional investors to apply pressure financial services companies to service crypto assets. | Source: 

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