Economic Alignments

Goldman Sachs’ head of global digital assets has said that the demand for cryptocurrency from various institutions is gaining momentum. The firm, Goldman Sachs, is, therefore, expanding its market scope to address such demands.

Giants in the banking sector, Goldman Sachs, and the UK’s Barclays Bank have taken part in a $70 million Series A fundraiser for Elwood Technologies, the institutional cryptocurrency exchange platform. The firm was founded by British billionaire and hedge fund manager, Alan Howard.

Other firms that were part of the fundraiser include Galaxy Digital which is a crypto investment manager, the German crypto-friendly bank Commerzbank, and Dawn Capital. According to the report by Financial Times, the firm became valued at about $500 million on Sunday.

In spite of the recent travails of the crypto market, Elwood said it is betting on huge chances that financial firms like banks and hedge funds are still going to have interest in buying into cryptocurrencies. The fundraiser for Elwood was already scheduled and in top gear before the crypto market began to shed prices. The market’s crisis has caused about 15% of the market capitalization to be lost since the 9th of May, as reported by CoinMarketCap.

The CEO of Elwood Technologies, James Stickland, stated that the fundraiser was a validation of the potential longevity of crypto. He also said that the firm got funding from financial institutions that are not exactly expecting returns in a very short time. They are investing in infrastructures, which signals a message of reassurance.

The Direction of Usage

In the design of Elwood Technologies, it provides a portfolio management system that has a crypto market guidance and trading infrastructures for institutional investors. It also has an interface that links to crypto trading platforms, custodians, as well as liquidity providers.

Mathew McDermott, the Head of Global Digital Assets at Goldman Sachs, said that the investment revealed that Goldman Sachs has a continuous commitment to crypto assets. He added that as the institutional demands for crypto assets are rising, Goldman Sachs has been expanding its market scope and abilities to address the demand of clients.

The latest investment from Goldman Sachs is its leg deeper into the crypto sector. The bank was the first to give a loan that was backed up by Bitcoin to Coinbase early in the month of May. Goldman Sachs has a long interest in the space as it made reference to the Metaverse and digital assets generally as Megatrends in the month of March.

Another instance of the bank’s romance with crypto asset forms was when its CEO, David Solomon, had a meeting with the CEO of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried. The meeting featured an offer by Solomon for Goldman Sachs to help aid FTX in funding rounds, as well as compliance with regulators in the future.