Goldman Sachs launches bitcoin futures trading

Goldman Sachs – one of the major investment banks - is to launch bitcoin futures in near future. The Company will offer its customers a more flexible crypto currency derivative – a settlement forward contract enabling to insure transaсtions by hedging. The exact date of the crypto currency derivatives launch has not been set so far.

On behalf of its customers, Goldman Sachs will enter into futures transactions pegged to the bitcoin rate. So far, the bank has no plans to trade in bitcoins but this possibility is not ruled out in future, if such transactions get a go ahead from the regulators and the bank is able to guarantee the assets’ security.

Rana Yared, the Goldman Sachs executive director, stated that the bank decided to add a new investment instrument due to the clients’ rising interest in crypto currencies with many of them ready to add bitcoin-backed assets to their portfolios. Yared emphasized that despite the Board’s decision to launch bitcoin futures, Goldman Sachs is still skeptical about crypto currency-related transactions due to higher transactional risk they involve.

On 23 April, the crypto currency trader Justin Schmidt became Goldman Sachs’ vice president; he will be, among other, in charge of matters related to digital assets.

More and more people get interested in crypto currencies but direct trading remains too risky for classical traders. That is why a futures contract becomes a possible compromise.

In late 2017, the CBOE and CME Group launched the first bitcoin futures.