Goldman Sachs’ digital assets unit is reportedly open to bolstering its 70-strong team, despite a massive cost-cutting exercise at the firm last month that will see 3,200 employees clear their desks. Mathew McDermott, Global Head of Digital Assets for Goldman Sachs said the bank remains “hugely supportive” of exploring blockchain applications and that the digital asset division will hire “as appropriate” this year. The executive made the comments in Hong Kong to Bloomberg last week, noting that the digital assets team has grown from just four staff members in 2020 to around 70 today. The firm’s supposed openness to beef …
Michael Demissie, the head of digital assets at Bank of New York Mellon (BNY Mellon) is adamant that the cryptocurrency market fall in 2022 won’t waver institutional interest in digital assets. At a conference run by Afore Consulting on Feb. 8, Demissie said the digital asset industry is “here to stay” as institutional investors have held a strong interest in crypto. "What we see is clients are absolutely interested in digital assets, broadly,” he said, according to a Feb. 8 report from Reuters. Demissie backed up his thoughts by referencing a survey conducted by BNY Mellon in October, 2022, which …
Only one of the following news items is real, but someday, all will sound equally comical. Headline, 1896: The owner of Wagoneer & Sons, a leading horse-drawn carriage maker, has announced the adoption of a new machine called the “internal combustion engine” to improve its manufacturing process. “Gas engines are powerful but dangerous,” the owner said. “We will use them to make better wagons. Headline, 1918: The American Association of Candle Makers has announced a new initiative to electrify its wax-making process. It believes that electricity is too dangerous to use for lighting but can be utilized to make cheaper …
One of the oldest pieces of contrarian investment wisdom is to buy when there is blood in the streets. If it were that easy, crypto investors would be euphoric at all the buy opportunities right now. If you’re rattled by the bear market, which has been especially brutal even by crypto standards, don’t beat yourself up over it. Cryptocurrency is still an unproven asset class that operates in the shadow of regulators. I don’t blame you for not buying an asset class that’s down over 70% this year. With those caveats in mind, a quiet herd of smart money investors …
The negative effects caused by the FTX debacle have put the crypto space in an unfavorable light. However, institutional investors continued to show interest in the industry even at the height of the FTX controversy. According to crypto exchange Bitstamp, compared to their data in October, institutional registrations within its digital asset trading platform is up by 57% in November, when the topic of the FTX collapse frequented news headlines. The exchange also told Cointelegraph that its total revenue is up by 45% in the same period, with revenue coming from institutions up by 34% and from retail traders up …
As crypto company valuations are affected by the recent FTX debacle, financial services firm Goldman Sachs is looking to swoop in and invest millions to purchase or invest in crypto firms while the prices are low. In an interview with mainstream media outlet Reuters, Mathew McDermott, an executive at Goldman Sachs, reportedly said that big banks are seeing opportunities in the space as the FTX collapse highlighted a need for more regulation within the industry. The executive added that the firm is currently seeing opportunities that are "priced more sensibly" and are already doing its due diligence on some crypto …
Bitcoin (BTC) has been consolidating inside the $18,000-$20,000 price range since mid-June, pausing a strong bear market that began after the price peaked at $69,000 in November 2021. Many analysts have looked at Bitcoin's sideways trend as a sign of a potential market bottom, drawing comparisons from the cryptocurrency's previous bear markets that show similar price behaviors preceding sharp, bullish reversals. Here're three strikingly similar trends that preceded past market bottoms. 2018 BTC price sideways trend The 2018's Bitcoin bear market serves as a major cue for a potential market bottom in 2022 if one looks at its eerily similar …
A sequence of macro warnings coming out of the Goldman Sachs camp puts Bitcoin (BTC) at a risk of crashing to $12,000. Bitcoin in "bottom phase?" A team of Goldman Sachs economists led by Jan Hatzius raised their prediction for the speed of Federal Reserve benchmark rate hikes. They noted that the U.S. central bank would increase rates by 0.75% in September and 0.5% in November, up from their previous forecast of 0.5% and 0.25%, respectively. Fed's rate-hike path has played a key role in determining Bitcoin's price trends in 2022. The period of higher lending rates — from near …
On Sept. 6 Bitcoin (BTC) price crumbled below $20,000 and the asset looks ready to undergo further decline in September due to a strong U.S. dollar and an ominous technical analysis pattern. Bitcoin eyes $15,000 next From a technical perspective, Bitcoin risks dropping to $15,000 or below in the coming weeks after breaking out of its prevailing "bear flag" pattern. For the unversed, bear flags form when the price consolidates higher inside a parallel, ascending range after a strong downtrend. They typically resolve after the price breaks below the lower trendline and falls by as much as the previous downtrend's …
After the rising wedge formation was broken on Aug. 17, the total crypto market capitalization quickly dropped to $1 trillion and the bulls' dream of recouping the $1.2 trillion support, last seen on June 10, became even more distant. The worsening conditions are not exclusive to crypto markets. The price of WTI oil ceded 3.6% on Aug. 22, down 28% from the $122 peak seen on June 8. The United States treasuries 5-year yield, which bottomed on Aug. 1 at 2.61%, reverted the trend and is now trading at 3.16%. These are all signs that investors are feeling less confident …
John Haar, a former asset manager at financial institution Goldman Sachs believes the lack of support from “legacy finance” for Bitcoin stems from a poor understanding of the cryptocurrency. Haar’s views were expressed in an essay on Aug. 14, which was originally sent to private clients of Bitcoin brokerage platform Swan Bitcoin. Haar previously spent 13 years at Wall Street asset management giant Goldman Sachs, before joining Swan Bitcoin as managing director of Private Client Services in April 2022. The essay explains that not only do people in “legacy finance” fail to understand what he considers one of Bitcoin’s (BTC) …
Crypto lending platform Celsius Network has an approximately $1.2 billion gap in its balance sheet, with most liabilities owed to its users. In addition, the firm has filed for bankruptcy protection, so its future looks bleak. Still, Celsius Network's native utility token CEL has soared in valuation by over 4,100% in the last two months, reaching around $3.93 on Aug. 13 compared to its mid-June bottom of $0.093. In comparison, top coins Bitcoin (BTC) and Ether (ETH) rallied 40% and 130% in the same period. Takeover rumors behind CEL explosion? Technically, the price rally made CEL an excessively valued token …