The news that Goldman Sachs would inform clients about Bitcoin sparked a stir in the crypto world on Wednesday morning. Would the famous investment bank give a stamp of approval to the digital currency? Would the briefing make the price of Bitcoin skyrocket?
Unfortunately, for crypto fans, the answer was a resounding no when the slides from Goldman’s presentation, dryly titled “US Economic Outlook and Current Policy Implications for Inflation, Gold, and Bitcoin.” , leaked on social media.
One slide offered the withering insight that cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin aren’t even an asset class in the first place, and they don’t offer cash flow or hedge against inflation.
Not surprisingly, the many Bitcoin fans on Twitter lashed out at Goldman Sachs. These included Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the twins who gained fame for their legal fights with Mark Zuckerberg before becoming Bitcoin billionaires. They attacked the bank for its alleged ignorance and hypocrisy about cryptocurrencies:
Meanwhile, Ryan Selkis, CEO of crypto research firm Messari, revived Goldman’s nickname of “vampire squid” to compare the bank’s performance to Bitcoin.
And Neeraj Agrawal of the Coin Center industry group couldn’t resist reminding the bank of its 2018 flirtation with building a crypto trading desk, and the questionable hairstyles of its would-be Bitcoin executives.
A Goldman Sachs spokesperson declined to comment on Twitter’s setbacks, saying: “I’m not sure there is much to add.”
In the bigger picture, Wednesday’s fight is likely to become another footnote in the long-standing feud between Bitcoin’s boosters and the traditional financial establishment, a feud that has seen Warren Buffett cross out Bitcoin as “rat poison squared” and JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon declares is a “fraud.”
Yet despite the social media melodrama, there are signs that the two worlds are coming together. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal reported that JPMorgan was hiring crypto giant Coinbase as a banking client, while on Wednesday Coinbase announced that it was acquiring a trading firm comprised of traditional finance executives, including one from Goldman Sachs. .
