Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs has quietly begun signing up a limited number of customers for its yet-to-launch bitcoin trading product.
Citing a source familiar with the matter, reports that the 149-year-old Bulge Bracket bank has onboarded a “small number of clients” to actively trade the derivative, a non-deliverable forward, which is a cash-settled product that is comparable to a futures contract but does not trade on an exchange. Additionally, the bank continues to consider for cryptoassets.
Notably, the publication’s source also contradicted an earlier report from another crypto site which alleged that was “actively exploring the creation” of a non-deliverable forward for , the native asset of the Ethereum platform. That would have been a major stamp of approval for Ethereum, as well as altcoins in general, as it seeks to achieve the level of Wall Street exposure that bitcoin has begun to see over the past 12 months. However, the source said that the bank is not pursuing the creation of an ether derivative.
At present, bitcoin derivatives are available on several regulated US trading platforms, including options exchanges CME and CBOE. Both of these firms offer cash-settled , and each has given investors reasons to believe that they will expand their crypto offerings in the future. CBOE, on its part, has outright its desire to remain a leader in the cryptocurrency derivatives marketplace, while CME has an ether price reference rate but in public statements has about the crypto industry.
LedgerX, an institutional crypto derivatives platform that currently offers a suite of bitcoin products, is building out support for ether as well, pending approval from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
Meanwhile, , a crypto startup launched by the owner of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), is preparing to launch its first bitcoin futures product, which is to begin trading on Dec. 12. Unlike the contracts available on CME and CBOE, Bakkt’s bitcoin product will be physically-settled, meaning that actual bitcoins will change hands when the contracts expire.
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Published at Tue, 30 Oct 2018 23:35:55 +0000
