Goldman Sachs is looking into the possibility of issuing its very own cryptocurrency.
In July, Matthew McDermott, who was formerly in charge of internal finance for Goldman Sachs, was named head of digital assets.
McDermott will replace Justin Schmidt, who is a former crypto trader who has led the Goldman Sachs digital asset team since 2018.
McDermott is confident that the future of global financial markets is directly related to the blockchain. He says:
“Over the next 5-10 years, we may face a financial system where all assets and liabilities will be based on the blockchain, and all transactions will take place in the chain. What is being done in the physical world today will be done digitally with greatly increased efficiency. This can relate to the issuance of debt securities, securitization, the initiation of loans. In fact, an ecosystem of digital financial markets will be created, the possibilities are quite diverse”.
McDermott plans to expand Goldman Sachs’ digital asset team by doubling its membership in Asia and Europe. He lured away JPMorgan Chase digital asset strategist Oli Harris, sources said. Harris was involved in the creation of JPM Coin, which is the first digital currency of a large bank, which was announced last year.
McDermott said that, first of all, he plans to digitize the Repo market, whose daily turnover usually exceeds $1 trillion. According to him, now there are many outdated processes that lead to an increase in the cost of operations, and their standardization on the blockchain will increase the efficiency of the entire system.
In addition, McDermott wants to integrate the distributed ledger into the credit and mortgage markets and hinted at the possibility of cooperation in this direction with JPMorgan. Also, McDermott said:
“We are considering the commercial viability of creating our own digital coin, but while this initiative is in its early stages, we continue to explore potential applications”.
