Investment banking giant Goldman Sachs has revealed it held over $418 million in several Bitcoin-related exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in the April-June quarter on behalf of its institutional investor clients. 

The disclosure is pertinent as the bank was earlier known to be a sceptic of the digital asset class and its holdings thus revealing a small but growing confidence in cryptocurrency among the traditional financial industry.

The information was part of a quarterly 13F-HR disclosure filed by institutional managers with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 

GS reported new holdings in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust valued at $238.6 million, representing 6,991,248 shares, per the filing.

Other notable positions from the bank include $79.5 million in the Fidelity Bitcoin ETF, $35.1 million in the Grayscale Bitcoin Trust, and $56.1 million in the Invesco Galaxy Bitcoin ETF.

Smaller positions were also disclosed in the Bitwise Bitcoin ETF at $8.3 million, WisdomTree Bitcoin ETF at $749,469, and ARK 21Shares Bitcoin ETF at $299,900.

Goldman Sachs’ evolving views on crypto

Sharmin Mossavar-Rahmani, chief investment officer of the bank’s Wealth Management unit, has long been known for her skepticism of Bitcoin and other digital assets, and she has not demonstrated a departure from her views.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in April this year, Rahmani said of crypto,

 

We do not think it is an investment asset class…we’re not believers in crypto.

She attributed her dismissal of the asset class to the difficulty in assigning a value to it.

“If you cannot assign a value, then how can you be bullish or bearish?” she said.

However, other senior executives of the bank have, over the last few months been more encouraging of crypto, and have acknowledged the success of Bitcoin ETFs.

In an interview with Fortune last month, Mathew McDermott, digital assets global head at GS said the launch of Bitcoin ETFs was a “renewed momentum in crypto”, thus seeking to beak away from Rahmani’s stance on the asset.

He said that Goldman Sachs is more active in crypto from an institutional perspective, including trading cash-settled crypto derivatives on behalf of clients, along with its involvement in the ETF markets.

He had also shared that the bank was looking at launching three tokenisation projects by the end of the year with major clients, hopping on the bandwagon of financial institutions looking towards blockchain to help digitally represent asset ownership for any tangible or intangible asset- stocks or bonds, cash or cryptocurrency.

Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup are other financial majors which are leading the charge in getting tokenisation into banking.

How have Bitcoin ETFs fared?

The approval of Bitcoin ETFs by the SEC this year in January came to be known as a watershed moment in global crypto. Since then, the ETFs have come a long way.

As of August 13, total net assets under US BTC Spot ETF stood at $55.34 billion, according to SoSoValue.

Grayscale, a major player in the crypto ETF space, manages over $25 billion in assets across its US-listed products, which currently include single-asset Bitcoin and Ether funds.

Coming to the 13F quarterly disclosures by funds with more than $100 million in US stock investments, Matrixport said it may be found that more pension funds and asset management companies increased their holdings of Bitcoin ETFs in the second quarter which may boost the confidence of institutional investors.

Since the 13F helps apprise the public of the holdings of the nation’s largest institutional investors to increase investor confidence in financial markets, the holding of over $418 million in Bitcoin ETFs by Goldman Sachs highlights the growing acceptance of the asset class within the financial industry. 

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