Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will start a bitcoin desk with support for bitcoin futures and a form of short-term futures for clients next week, according to a report today from Reuters.

The report describes Goldman Sachs as “restarting” its cryptocurrency desk amid a boom in bitcoin, but that may not be entirely correct. The company had advanced plans to launch a bitcoin trading desk in 2018 but was reported in September 2018 to have abandoned those plans on concerns about the regulatory environment.

A Goldman Sachs spokesperson later denied that it had abandoned its plans, but there’s no record of its ever having gone ahead with a bitcoin desk before now. Even reports that claim Goldman had launched a bitcoin desk only reference plans, not an actual launch.

The history aside, the fact that Goldman has decided to enter the bitcoin market now is a positive for the cryptocurrency.

The Reuters report noted that in addition to initially offering futures and nondeliverable forwards, the latter a form of short-term futures, Goldman Sachs is also exploring the potential for a bitcoin exchange-traded fund and has issued a request for information to explore digital asset custody.

Bitcoin ETFs are exchange-traded funds that track the value of bitcoin and trade on traditional market exchanges rather than cryptocurrency exchanges. The idea is that they allow investors to invest in bitcoin without buying bitcoin directly.

Goldman will be entering the bitcoin market at a time that the cryptocurrency has hit record highs, but its price remains volatile. Bitcoin broke through the $30,000 for the first time on New Year’s Eve and then continued to rise, breaking through $40,000 Jan. 8. The cryptocurrency then broke through $50,000 Feb. 16 before the roller-coaster ride kicked in. Peaking at $58,012 Feb. 21, bitcoin has since fallen as low as $43,535 on Feb. 28.

Whether it’s a natural part of the current bitcoin roller-coaster ride or the fact that investors took note of the Goldman Sachs news, bitcoin was trading at $49,195 as of 8:51 p.m. EST, up 6% over the last 24 hours.

Image: Pixabay